Gorillaz: Song Machine, Season 1 [PARLOPHONE]

Why you'll love it

This EU pressing comes with a download card. The album went to No. 2 in the UK and No. 12 on the Billboard 200, and it holds a Metacritic score of 81.

This edition

• Download card included
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

In 2020 Damon Albarn and Remi Kabaka Jr. turned Gorillaz into a web series: a new song and video every few weeks, with whoever happened to walk through the studio door. The episodes kept coming through the pandemic, and Season One gathers them up as the band's seventh album. Albarn said the plan was simply to keep going until they ran out of ideas.

The guest list is wonderfully unlikely. Robert Smith drifts through "Strange Timez," Beck brings the bounce to "The Valley of the Pagans," Leee John of Imagination glides over "The Lost Chord," ScHoolboy Q raps on "Pac-Man" and St. Vincent stars on "Chalk Tablet Towers." Peter Hook and Georgia join on "Aries," Octavian takes "Friday 13th," Kano fronts "Dead Butterflies," Fatoumata Diawara sings "Désolé" and slowthai and Slaves crash "Momentary Bliss." James Ford, Prince Paul and Mike Dean are among the producers, and the styles range from punk to piano ballads to post-rave ambience without ever losing that Gorillaz glow. With no tour possible, the band played it live from their Kong studio in December 2020 instead.

Elton John and 6lack share "The Pink Phantom," a seating plan most dinner party hosts can merely dream about.

Also at Kops: more Gorillaz on vinyl · browse Pop

Tracklist

Listen

On Parlophone / Warner Records, the 2020 album.