“Live in plastic on a vacant lot,
Left behind, staring at a robot.”
They say it’s easiest to write about what you know, and, like Win Butler (see Arcade Fire’s Everything Now and We), Damon Albarn seems to know an awful lot about the social ills exacerbated by technological evolution. I mean, Gorillaz is, after all, a band whose very existence is an object lesson in the overlapping of virtual and material worlds. Within the first few songs of Cracker Island, the Gorillaz’ eighth studio album and a pseudo-sequel to their third, Plastic Beach, we hear references to autotune, cargo cults, codes, machines, databases, cracked screens, doom scrolling, weary influencers, Tesla. This is a melancholy man adrift in the virtual ocean, wandering the digital morass of bits and bytes and blue light, searching for a solid piece of ground. His solution, offered half-heartedly, is, of course, love.
Themes of disillusionment, dissociation, and cultural saturation mark the musical compositions as well, by which I mean that for large swaths of the album the usually distinguished Albarn is making by-the-numbers synthpop; albeit by-the-numbers synthpop with strong hooks and complemented by notable stylistic flourishes and a hodgepodge of guest appearances. But where their previous album (Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez) showcased a featured artist on every song and gave those unique personalities the opportunity to express their own styles, here all of the guests (Thundercat, Stevie Nicks, The Pharcyde’s Bootie Brown) except maybe Tame Impala and Bad Bunny are accents rather than centerpieces (I can’t envision how one pitches to Stevie Nicks the opportunity to play second fiddle to a cartoon monkey). And the astonishing stylistic diversity that saw previous albums incorporate elements of trip hop, alt rock, world music, hip hop, reggae, punk, folk, and what have you on past albums is restrained here, or at least has its edges aggressively sanded down, in favor of a streamlined new wave sound. Because new wave nostalgia is in vogue and radio savvy producer Greg Kurstin co-wrote all of the songs. If it weren’t for the strength of the singles, which are wonderful pop mélange, this would be an anonymous, milquetoast commercial product, a breezy summer record that is pleasant but forgettable.
And really that’s the rub. Cracker Island is solid pop music for the 21st century. But where Gorillaz used to be a wonky side project that allowed Albarn to flesh out his offbeat ideas and explore different concepts and genres—and still carries that mystique and conceit with it—the band is now simply one act of many churning out melting pot pop music with slick production values. They’re one of the heavyweights, but they’re no longer in a class of one.
In a way, Cracker Island throws into stark relief the challenge of the modern artist—is it worth it to follow popular trends, which are now so easy to trace and replicate, if it means shearing off the distinct elements of your unique personality? Albarn retains enough of his own chameleonic sensibilities to avoid the fate of a completely copy-paste album, but I don’t feel as confident in that assertion as I do about something like, say, Demon Days or Plastic Beach. What’s funny is that, fifteenish years ago, Gorillaz were just an offshoot (let’s not forget about Blur) messing around on the margins of pop music behind the smokescreen of a cartoon band, offering up delirious odes to a variety of musical styles and taking some risks that paid off big time; but now the kitchen-sink approach they pioneered has been assimilated and regurgitated with a sickly sheen, making it difficult to differentiate themselves.
Even so, most side projects of popular ‘90s bands are no longer active, let alone relevant in any meaningful sense. I mean, Albarn might sound eternally youthful, but he’s almost eligible for the senior citizen discount at my local movie theater. That he’s putting out enjoyable pop music and even keeping pace with pop trends (no matter what one thinks of them in general) is a remarkable feat in and of itself.
Favorite Tracks: Cracker Island; Silent Running; New Gold; Baby Queen; Skinny Ape.