Greetings, N&G! The time has come for me to pick an album for the Listening Club. I had a hard time narrowing my choice down to one that I felt I strongly wanted to pick, as well as one I felt would be appreciated by others on the forum. Eventually I settled on a somewhat unexpected choice and one that I'm sure some of you have heard, but hopefully will still provide for some interesting discussion.
The album I have chosen is
Gorillaz - D-Sides
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I've made no secret of my love for Gorillaz. They were my first musical obsession and one that I've continued to hold very dear. Their first three albums were all cornerstones of my childhood and were in many ways my introduction to various types of music. My parents were mostly rock fans and therefore that was most of what I was exposed to by them. So hearing the debut album and
Demon Days for the first time absolutely blew my entire conceptions of music wide open. I've heard the music of Gorillaz classified as many different things but I think trying to label the project under one genre misses the entire point. The most exciting thing about the project to me when I was younger is no two songs sounded alike and it captured my restless imagination. And oddly enough, the album I feel best displays this phenomenon is not even a proper album, but a scrappy little B-sides compilation.
I'm assuming most of the forum is familiar with
Demon Days considering its popularity and acclaim.
D-Sides, on paper, is merely a collection of tracks recorded during the sessions for
Demon Days that did not make the final album. However I feel it also serves as a very interesting companion piece to the perfectionism of
Demon Days; one of the most impressive aspects of DD is how it manages to tightly and expertly flow through multiple moods and genres throughout its fifteen tracks, never wasting a second. On the flipside,
D-Sides contains a similar genre roulette approach, but with the attitude that these aren't album cuts that will be scrutinized, so the experimentation is much less controlled and allows the musicians involved a chance to stumble into any genre and style just because... well, why not?
And personally I find that inspiring. I can see the less polished nature of
D-Sides compared to its sister album being a turn off for some, but I've always had an interest in what goes on behind the curtain of my favorite albums. And
D-Sides, whether intentionally or not, seems to provide a very interesting peer into the creation of
Demon Days. Can you imagine if instead of the beautiful choral arrangement of "Don't Get Lost in Heaven", we had gotten a whacked out faux-country take of the song on the album instead? Or if the awkward and quirky "People" hadn't been tweaked into a monster dance hit somewhere down the line?
D-Sides is an oddity of an album; there's so many various sound and moods conveyed, whether it's the sinister yet chill "Spitting Out the Demons", the surreal drum machine led "Rockit", the harsh industrial "Murdoc is God" or the hauntingly beautiful "Hong Kong." This is an album that showcases Gorillaz during one of it's most artistically unconventional and creative periods and, for a compilation of "leftovers", is one of my favorite listening experiences anytime I put it on.
It also contains my favorite Gorillaz song of all time - I'll let you guess which one!
Also a side note - I'm only considering the first disc ("68 State" to "Stop the Dams") for the purposes of this listening club. You're free to listen to the second disc of remixes if you want but I don't find them nearly as interesting as the original songs.
Streaming links
Spotify:
Apple Music:
D-Sides by Gorillaz
