Gorillaz - Phase One - Celebrity Take Down (2002) Review

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(More customer reviews)Celebrity Take Down is, at heart, a companion piece to the debut Gorillaz album, offering closure to the first chapter in the band's existence as well as teasers of what's to come and hints of what might have been. Each of the faux-group's first four videos are featured in their entirety, from the still-life anti drama of "Tomorrow Comes Today" to the goofy, horror satire of "Clint Eastwood," and the audio is mixed brilliantly in Dolby 5.1 surround. It really is a whole new experience, taking these videos in with a crisp voice shouting from the front of the room, while the drums hit you from behind and the guitars ring on both sides.
Each video is accompanied by a variety of extras, including early-production versions of the computer graphics used in "19/2000," as well as storyboards and developmental sketches composed for "Rock the House." There's even a full storyboard for an unfinished video, "5/4," that's set to music and fits right in alongside its peers with an offbeat sense of humor and a great, imaginative premise. Rounding out the disc is a vast collection of promotional slicks and sketches of the characters "behind the scenes" at the various music video shoots, interviews with the fictional members of the band, five bizarre short films starring said band members and a lengthy mock-u-mentary about creators Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. The short films are fun to watch, if just to see more of the characters and Hewlett's visual flair, but lack the substance and dark, self-deprecating humor of the videos, and the documentary is more of the same. The extras are filled to the brim with slapstick comedy and silliness for the sake of being silly, while the videos never seem to force a joke and come off as much more refined and intelligent.
The interface is a little goofy, breaking from the traditional "Play All, Hands Off" nature that dominates today's DVD market. If you ever visited the Gorillaz web site when the band was first starting to take off, this will look very familiar. There's no quick and dirty way to navigate the disc's contents, instead you must navigate between the various rooms of the band members, look for a television screen, open magazine or personal computer, and click on it. You won't know which video you're about to watch or what bonus material you're about to discover until you're already knee-deep in it. It's a clever idea, but I don't know that it works as well on the TV, where people are conditioned to sit and stare, as it did on the monitor, where you're much more familiar with forced interactivity. Some of the allure of the site is missing from this DVD interface, as the developers had to make it obvious which areas were interactive and which weren't, and overall the experience is somewhat disorienting.
Easily enough, this disc is a Gorillaz fan's dream come true. The audio mix and video quality alone are worth a look if you enjoy the band's gimmick in the slightest, which I do, and the attention to every detail of the videos' production is really nice to see. I can live with an underdeveloped interface design and a few out-of-place featurettes.

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PHASE ONE:CELEBRITY TAKE DOWN - DVD Movie

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Plastic Beach (CD/DVD) Review

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(More customer reviews)I ventured on board the Gorillaz hype machine during Demon Days, their 2nd album and possibly their best to date. At the time I picked up the Deluxe version of Demon Days and loved the incredible quality of the package. With a great plastic slip, unique artwork and an entire mini-art book and DVD / CD it was truly an exceptional value as well as collector's piece.
When I saw the artwork for the Gorillaz latest album, 'Plastic Beach' I immediately thought of how great the last Deluxe edition had been and put in my pre-order. Upon it's arrival, the first thing that immediately struck me is how cheap it looked. Rather than any sort of slip case or plastic, everything in this "Deluxe" edition is cardboard. It looks terrible in comparison to the Demon Days deluxe package and basically it's a fold out cardboard piece with 2 sleeves that hold 2 smaller cardboard sleeves for the CD & DVD 'Making Of.' The saving grace for the packaging is the artwork, with vivid colors and images it almost provides the necessary incentive to pay about twice as much for this edition compared to the standard release.
With that said, I can't whole heartedly recommend this as a purchase. While the packaging is poorly made, the biggest disappointment by far is the included DVD. Prior to the release of Plastic Beach, I was lucky enough to see the music video for Stylo on youtube. It was great, with CGI Gorillaz members and even Bruce Willis. On the Demon Days deluxe edition, there was a nice variety of content included on the bonus DVD including the album's leading song in music video format.
On the Plastic Beach Deluxe edition, they have made a dire error that I feel should stop anyone who was a fan of the DVD in Demon Day's Deluxe from picking this edition up. As is becoming more of the norm these days, the producers of this package opted to include special downloadable and streaming content via the Gorillaz website rather than including said games, videos and more on the bonus DVD. In my opinion, this is incredibly disappointing and takes away from the actual physical package. The Demon Days DVD was solid and really made the purchase worthwhile ... the Plastic Beach is only a 45 minute "making of feature" that offers very little of the Gorillaz artwork or any mention of the Stylo video ... that's it, there is nothing else on the disc. I'm sure the bonus online content is quite good but down the road in 5 to 10 years, I'll still be able to pop in the Demon Days DVD and get everything in one convenient place, sadly the same cannot be said for this "Deluxe" edition.
For those on the fence about this edition, I say go with the standard and save your money ... only diehard Gorillaz fans will find the extras worthwhile and while the artwork on the packaging is incredible, the medium on which it is presented is cheap and disappointing.
2 1/2 stars out of 5 for the Deluxe edition(rounded up for Amazon.com)

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Deluxe version of Plastic Beach includes the standard 16-track CD as well as a 45-minute "making of" documentary DVD that provides online access to extra music, games and video.

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Plastic Beach Review

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(More customer reviews)"Empire Ants" starts off like the nice-but-boring ballads from the last Blur album. Then it suddenly explodes into a dazzling rush of impossibly clean keyboards and Yukimi Nagano's lost, spaced-out vocals. It is an incredible, beautiful contrast with Damon Albarn's conventional balladeering in the beginning.
Ultimately, Plastic Beach isn't as visionary as Demon Days (surely one of the top five albums of the 2000s), but when it does come together, there's nothing else like it. The album's other peak is the lead single "Stylo," which unsurprisingly bears the most resemblance to the dark mood of Demon Days. It's packed with even more brilliant left-field juxtapositions than "Feel Good Inc." The music is based on a cold pinpoint-techno crawl with dark keyboard overlays. The lead vocal is passed from a smooth vocoded rap by Mos Def, to Albarn's fragile lost soul (much like in "Feel Good Inc."), to a colossal, histrionic turn by soul legend Bobby Womack. The smooth, easy way with which these three very different vocal styles alternate is remarkable, and the first two vocalists create a restrained counterpoint to Womack's overpowering, force-of-nature voice.
Alas, "Stylo" is the only time Plastic Beach flirts with darkness. The other catchy pop moments are of a more comic, whimsical nature. "Superfast Jellyfish" has De La Soul on lead vocals, but it's really a classicist British pop song masquerading as hip-hop. It has more in common with catchy, fey Blur songs like "For Tomorrow" and "Charmless Man" (and with predecessors like the Kinks) than with rap or electronic music. I predict that it will be massively popular in Britain, but I personally prefer the more dramatic tone of Demon Days.
Albarn produces the album himself this time, and it shows. Aside from the one brilliant moment in "Empire Ants," there are no sudden, abrupt shifts like the crashing rap verse in "Dirty Harry" or the move from keyboards to acoustic guitar to strings in "Last Living Souls." That was a large part of what made Demon Days so captivating -- you never knew what was coming next, even over the course of one song. Plastic Beach is less unpredictable.
Furthermore, Albarn's background in Britpop leads him to make less effective use of the rappers than previous producer Danger Mouse. On "White Flag," Albarn tries to create an unconventional Gorillaz juxtaposition by putting a string and woodwind section together with rapping. Unfortunately, instead of flowing together seamlessly like "Dirty Harry," it sounds really jarring. I think Kano and Bashy have an awkward flow, especially when compared to the effortless way in which Bootie Brown dominated a much more complex rhythm-and-strings combination on Demon Days. Additionally, "Sweepstakes" is a very ungainly and repetitive song (unfortunately much longer than "White Light") -- Mos Def basically yells a few lines over and over, a far cry from his own performance in "Stylo."
The huge number of collaborations on Plastic Beach means less than the sum of its parts. What's the point of getting Mark E. Smith on your album if you only have him sing a couple of lines? "Glitter Freeze" may have Smith's name on it, but it's basically an instrumental -- a good one, but you'd expect more. "Superfast Jellyfish" has Gruff Rhys on the chorus, but he sounds completely identical to Albarn. The title track features Mick Jones and Paul Simonon of the Clash, but there's nothing about it that really stands out from any other Gorillaz song. If Jones is participating in the vocals, I couldn't tell him from Albarn either.
On the plus side, "Some Kind Of Nature" features a hugely appealing performance by Lou Reed. His bemused affectations, together with the music-hall backing, make him sound like a more gravelly-voiced version of Bowie. The positive tone is really infectious, and Albarn provides a bit of creeping melancholy in the chorus. Furthermore, Snoop Dogg is the perfect choice for "Welcome To The World Of The Plastic Beach." His extremely lazy, luxuriant style is an ideal match for the tropical-resort image of the "plastic beach," and he offers a generally positive message, but his voice always has this sleazy, threatening undercurrent that is also perfect for Albarn's vision of "plastic" debris. The glitzy, chintzy horns blaring throughout the track are a great touch, creating a seductively futuristic, extravagant sound.
Also, Albarn always has Britpop balladry to fall back on. He finds two gems in this vein: "Rhinestone Eyes," where woozy synth-funk combines with his detached speak-singing (surprisingly poignant when it leans toward singing at the end of a line), and the gently rolling "On Melancholy Hill." Other songs like "Broken" cover the same emotional territory, but "Rhinestone Eyes" is by far the best.
I think we all wanted this to be the ultimate globe-trotting, ultra-hip, futuristic album. Actually, Plastic Beach is more like The Great Escape to Demon Days' Parklife. It has more pop, more hooks, more collaborations, more everything, and sometimes it's even better, but still, it was Demon Days that really nailed the mood of the decade. Plastic Beach doesn't have the same effect, but it has moments of brilliant inspiration.

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Five years on from the release of Demon Days, Murdoc Niccals and co. return with Plastic Beach. The band have taken up residence, recording on a secret floating island deep in the South Pacific, a Plastic Beach HQ, made up of the detritus, debris and washed up remnants of humanity. This Plastic Beach is the furthest point from any landmass on Earth; the most deserted spot on the planet.
The world s biggest animated band, Gorillaz formed in 1998, and have since sold 12 million copies over two albums Gorillaz (2000) and Demon Days (2005). They have hit number 1 in more than a dozen countries and picked up awards including Grammys, Novellos, VMAs and EMAs.
Plastic Beach is produced by Gorillaz.

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Blur: Starshaped (1994) Review

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(More customer reviews)The period documented by this newly refurbished DVD re-release of "Starshaped"--roughly 1991-93--was without a doubt one of the highlights in the history of this now-venerable UK act. Fresh from their initial flush of success, but before they became ubiquitous superstars, "Starshaped" features some spirited live performances and backstage footage that offers a more intimate look at the group than their Best Of collection of videos. The camera focuses most naturally on frontman Albarn, although time is also given to Graham Coxton's quirky and likeable personality, as he cheerily complains of headaches, dehydration and the effects of being on sedatives.
Some fine footage of "Colin Zeal, "Popscene", "For Tomorrow" and "Day After Day" garnish the original video, now with added
concert footage from Kilburn and the Princess Charlotte in '91.
The band is in transition from its earlier, trancy, Stone Roses-influenced sound to the Kink-esque form of "Modern Life Is Rubbish", but it all sounds like excellent guitar-pop with
a heavy psychedelic rush, loving social comment and and topped by Albarn's signature vocal style. He certainly doesn't lack energy throughout, and frequently gets himself into trouble with his on-stage shenanigans (ie when the PA falls on his foot), giving the film at times a Spinal Tap quality (they even visit Stonehenge), although it's all with tongue well in cheek. Blur were probably at their most likeable at this stage, an up-and coming group who would conquer the UK in only a year's time from the release of "Starshaped", a document which certainly gives ample enough justification for their rise and whose US release is now very welcome.

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Three years of candid camera on the road with Blur, from Reading 1991 through the dark ages of the EEC in 1992 and then on to Modern Life.This 126 minute tour film features live footage including scenes from Glastonbury ’92, the Heineken Music Festival ’94 in Nottingham, and festivals in Germany, Denmark and Sweden. It is a fascinating rockumentary about the early days of one of the most influential bands of the 1990s.

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