街头霸王 (2001)

Gorillaz is the debut album by the English virtual band Gorillaz, released on 26 March 2001 in the United Kingdom by Parlophone and on 19 June 2001 in the United States by Virgin Records. The album was recorded between 1998 and 2000 at Damon Albarn's Studio 13 in London, as well as at Geejam Studios in Jamaica, and was produced by Dan the Automator, alongside the band themselves, Tom Girling, and Jason Cox. The album features guest contributions from Del the Funky Homosapien, Miho Hatori, Ibrahim Ferrer, and Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz of Tom Tom Club, establishing the pattern of Gorillaz music involving a variety of featured guest collaborators.

Marking a departure from the distinct Britpop sound of Albarn's band Blur, Gorillaz incorporates an eclectic mix of stylistic influences, including trip hop, dub, Latin and punk rock. The album was preceded by the Tomorrow Comes Today EP (2000), which featured three songs that would later appear on the album. The album spawned four singles, including "Clint Eastwood" (featuring Del the Funky Homosapien), "19-2000" (featuring Miho Hatori and Tina Weymouth), "Rock the House" (featuring Del the Funky Homosapien) and "Tomorrow Comes Today". The release of the album was promoted across a variety of multimedia including interactive websites, animated music videos and short cartoons created by Gorillaz co-creator Jamie Hewlett, with the album's associated visual media later compiled and released as the video album Phase One: Celebrity Take Down (2002).

Fueled by the success of the "Clint Eastwood" single, Gorillaz was a major commercial success upon its release, going on to sell over seven million copies worldwide and being certified platinum in the US and triple platinum in the UK. The album's success earned the group an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "Most Successful Virtual Band." The album was promoted via a 2001–2002 world tour, in which Albarn and a backing band performed obscured behind projection screens upon which Hewlett's visuals were displayed. The album received generally positive reviews from critics and has been ranked as among the best albums of the 2000s. B-sides and outtakes from the album's sessions were later released as the compilation album G-Sides, in December 2001. A 20th anniversary reissue of Gorillaz was released in 2021.

Background

Musician Damon Albarn and comic book creator Jamie Hewlett met in 1990 when guitarist Graham Coxon, a fan of Hewlett's work, asked him to interview Blur, a band Albarn and Coxon had recently formed. The interview was published in Deadline magazine, home of Hewlett's comic strip, Tank Girl. Hewlett initially thought Albarn was "arsey, a wanker"; despite becoming acquaintances with the band, they often did not get on, especially after Hewlett began seeing Coxon's ex-girlfriend Jane Olliver. Despite this, Albarn and Hewlett started sharing a flat on Westbourne Grove in London in 1997. Hewlett had recently broken up with Olliver and Albarn was at the end of his highly publicised relationship with Justine Frischmann of Elastica.

The idea to create Gorillaz came about when Albarn and Hewlett were watching MTV. Hewlett said, "If you watch MTV for too long, it's a bit like hell – there's nothing of substance there. So we got this idea for a cartoon band, something that would be a comment on that." The band originally identified themselves as "Gorilla" and the first song they recorded was "Ghost Train" which was later released as a B-side on their single "Rock the House" and the B-side compilation G-Sides. The musicians behind Gorillaz' first incarnation included Albarn, Del the Funky Homosapien, Dan the Automator and Kid Koala, who had previously worked together on the track "Time Keeps on Slipping" for Deltron 3030's first album Deltron 3030.

Although not released under the Gorillaz name, Albarn has said that "one of the first ever Gorillaz tunes" was Blur's 1997 single "On Your Own", which was released for their fifth studio album Blur (1997).

20th anniversary reissue

In March 2021, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the album's release, a vinyl box set was announced. The first edition of the boxset, which was exclusive to the band's webstore, was released on 10 December 2021. The boxset includes previously released material, including the original album, the B-sides compilation album G-Sides, and the remix album Laika Come Home (which received its first reissue since its initial press) and previously unreleased material, including live performances from the 2001 London Forum concert and five demos. Additionally, it also includes notes and early sketches by Jamie Hewlett during the making of the album.

Composition

Critics have described the album as alternative rock, lo-fi, dub, hip-hop, trip hop, and art pop, with elements of punk rock, rap rock, art rock, Britpop, Latin, and bubblegum pop.