Gorillaz' The Fall is a full-length album recorded in a month, on an iPad, during the band's Escape To Plastic Beach Tour. If that sounds like a good 45 minutes to you, you might also dig this post. If you're unfamiliar with the Gorillaz, I'd recommend you lay down in the shade somewhere and listen to Plastic Beach instead. That's a good, um, seasonally appropriate activity.
Released December 25th, 2010, The Fall managed to turn A New Gorillaz Album(!!!) into probably the lamest Christmas present ever. For real, on a scale of three ghosts to a Nintendo 64, this thing comes in at a new pair of Balenciaga Crocs. (So, at the bottom. Ew.) Maligned by fans, critics, and my dad alike, the Gorillaz' fourth studio album has been called a "gimmick", "oddly out of character", and "mid," relegating it to forgotten album status. OK so why am I recommending it?
I dunno I like it.
And I say that without caveats, actually. Anyone could tell you this isn't a proper Gorillaz album. But I'm not really interested in what The Fall lacks. A chronological audio diary from a genius sitting comfortably at the UK's top charts, depicting the half-dead America outside his tour bus isn't something you get to hear very often. Gorillaz fans weren't robbed of another classic album after the ambitious Plastic Beach. What we have here is an increasingly personal tour of bandleader Damon Albarn's head. Structure erodes down to these core ideas of isolation and fatigue, acoustic waffling and electronic drones. There's a disarming rawness to the project more or less stripped of its charms, like a beat old windup toy still walking in circles. This album is some post-apocalyptic, Gorillaz-2049 type shit.
Sure, we can gawk at how grating some of these demos sound. The album opens with what sounds like diarrhea at a haunted mansion Mario Kart track (IYKYK). There’s a lovely clanging sound every few seconds on "The Parish of Space Dust", and vocals on “HillBilly Man" sound chainsmoked. When we're listening together, I'm sometimes struck by me and my mom's different levels of tolerance for musical discomfort. I'm not sure if that term’s a winner, so I'll lay down a few Gorillaz-y examples. "The Last Man To Leave" off The Good, The Bad, and The Queen's Merrie Land is just a certified skip for her, but hits me as a particularly emotionally gut-wrenching moment. "Daft Wader"'s abrasive horn shredding midway through Damon Albarn's The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows could be a panic attack or brown noise, depending on who you ask. A little unpleasantness goes a long way, and The Fall feels like a whole album framed around that dynamic. Listen to the track "The Joplin Spider"– is that brutal wall of sound skillful discomfort or pure tedious, angsty venting?
However they end up sounding to you, moments of terror and tenderness ebb and flow on this record to paint a picture of a rough month on the road for our boy. After a series of twists and turns through rural, haunted America we end up in Seattle (hey!) for one final yodel, and then we're home. I think the whole song a day thing had gotten old by this point. Next week, a new thing.
This essay was first published to Bonus Tracks, the Spotlight On blog.
Continue the tour...
Phoner To Arizona
D-Sides
Journey To The West
Rocket Juice & The Moon
The Fall Track-by-Track review