There is much self-consciousness here, much flattering of the critical sensibility, but in the end you can allow Albarn his London Fields and his Hangover Square, you can allow him the Specials, the Kinks, the Clash, even the ghost of the Ruts, you can allow him J.G. Ballard and Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd, because by packing on these geological layers of influence he is only imitating the city that is his subject, carbon-black with the coatings of age. London works like this, compacted into a simultaneity by its own historical weight: at the utterance of the words “palace walls” in “Kingdom of Doom,” William Blake appears in angelic form, chanting, “And the hapless soldier’s sigh/Runs in blood down palace walls . . . ” And the voice in which Albarn sings to this city is, appropriately, not altogether his own but a voice made for the purpose, sighing with the fatalistic vowels of old London, where “no” becomes “now” and “day” turns into “die.”
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Gorillaz in the midst, DARE, Gorillaz at the Apollo, More 
- Gorillaz in the midst
Remember the great electronica gold rush of ’97, the year Madonna’s Maverick label won a massive bidding war over long-ignored rave mystic Liam Howlett, a/k/a Prodigy, and we all grooved to the electropunk clash of “Smack My Bitch Up”?
- DARE
Although Gorillaz musical mastermind Damon Albarn is busy recording with the Good, the Bad and the Queen, all’s not quiet on the Gorillaz front, at least not on the commercial front.
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There were puppets, singing and dancing middle schoolers, a gospel choir, a 14-piece string section from Juilliard, a who’s who of guests, including Neneh Cherry, De La Soul, Ike Turner, and a lollipop-sucking Shaun Ryder. But no Jamie Hewlett animations?!
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Unless we act fast, the darkest chapter in American æsthetic history may soon be revisited.
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Although this is their first album without an indie-chic producer, the fake band with fake cartoon characters known as Gorillaz stay the course as a very real post-Blur conduit for Damon Albarn's quasi-apocalyptic, '80s-daydreaming, neon-pop habit.
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My time has just come, too
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I’m probably not the only one who went to the Gnarls Barkly show Friday night at Avalon wondering if the costumes would be the most interesting part. Slideshow: Gnarls Barkley at Avalon, August 11, 2006
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The following review of Good Copy Bad Copy does not appear in the Phoenix ’s film section.
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An exceedingly bizarre sequence of events transpired this past week — the parents of two different playoff-competing NBA players were arrested in separate incidents, one on each coast.
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The Killers first worked with Stuart Price on a dance remix of their hit “Mr. Brightside” — and so far, this blend of rock-band brawn and electro-dance bliss has worked smashingly.
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Although music isn’t necessarily getting more political in content these days, it does seem to be borrowing a trope from the political world.
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Music Features
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