I switched my robot off

Continuing my trip back through the 2017 album charts.

05/05/17 : Humanz - Gorillaz

Repeating the theme from the last album, we have another fifth visit to a group of whom I like their best material, but struggle to understand the overall appeal. However, Gorillaz have the added disadvantage that they absolutely bored me stupid when I saw them live at Glastonbury, whereas Kasabian were reasonably entertaining - so my expectations are not high for this.

Hmmm - it's an interesting one. On a track by track basis, this easily exceeded expectations - they're all well put together with some interesting sounds (but no, Damon singing does not fall into this category). But, as an album, it's such a kitchen-sinky mish-mash (it's a technical term) that I really struggle to see who would be interested in this - and I also struggle to understand how they don't have the phrase "cultural appropriation" thrown at them. So, I liked it - but I also didn't, which feels a kinda odd place to be. I do have to admit I like the album cover though - even though I know it's complete nonsense.

We're at #2 in the charts with a new entry this week on the start of a somewhat mystifying eleven week run (who is listening to this?). The rest of the top five were Ed Sheeran (get used to hearing this), Rag'n'Bone Man, Steps and Kendrick Lamar, which is quite an eclectic mix and the next highest new entry was The Cranberries (#17).

Wikipedia has way more on the album than I expected (313 milliPeppers) and it tells us this is their fifth album and their first in seven years because of a falling out between Damon and Jamie - creatives, eh?!? Amusingly, the theme of the album is the "dark fantasy" (their words, not mine) that Donald Trump would win the 2016 election, which was still viewed as a remote possibility at the time of recording - but Damon was careful to excise any mentions of the man.

They have a load of guest artists involved, most of whom I've not heard of but I did at least recognise Grace Jones, Kali Uchis, Carly Simon, Jean-Michel Jarre, Pauline Black, Vince Staples, De La Soul, Mavis Staples, Pusha T, Noel Gallagher and Benjamin Clementine - apparently Rag'n'Bone Man, Christine & The Queens, Little Simz and Erykah Badu were also involved but failed to make the final cut. Ironically, the critics were generally quite nice about it but some people complained that Damon didn't feature enough on it - this is my least likely complaint about an album ever. However, I was inordinately pleased to see that Alexis Petridis of The Guardian said it was a "scattershot collection of tracks, rather than a coherent album" and Q liked it a lot, making it their #1 album on their year-end list. Commercially, it did way better globally than I was expecting, getting to #1 in Austria, Belgium and Switzerland and #2 in Canada, France, Ireland and the US. 

discogs.com tells us you're going to have to spend an incredible £11.99 to get a version of this but if you want the very different box set which features fourteen differently coloured 45 rpm 12" vinyl discs then it's going to set you back £410 - I imagine it's beautiful to look at, but I'm not sure I'd spend quite that much on it. But even considering the "cheap" version, my feelings are conflicted on this - there are plenty of interesting noises, but I really don't see it as a coherant album.

12/05/17 - One for the fans, methinks