Gorillaz Almanac 2020
Debra Necochea
According to the editor Beatrix Blotter, this almanac is "inspired by the British tradition of comic and pop music annuals, which come out every year and feature cartoon characters, celebrities and pop stars getting up to all kinds of mischiefs". That's a pretty accurate description of this book. This book is something like Mad Magazine where anything goes. There are comics, movie scripts, fake classified ads, essay from a roadie, cut out face masks, crossword puzzles, plenty of collage, scrapbook pages, photos of fan cosplayers, and more.
Hmm, I have mixed views on this one. I love Hewlett's style and the Taschen book is beautiful. This is nicely priced and if you are a die-hard Gorillaz fan, it's probably worth a look.
That said, I feel it's a little sad that it doesn't feel quite like an art book. It would have been nice to get some annotations or a little history about the art. Some sketches etc would be nice.
The weird feeling that you get is that by trying to be an annual, the likes of which us Brits might have picked up in WHSmith in the 1980s, it's trying to be slightly edgy and cool. It's sort of trying to be Scarfolk. It's edgy nostalgia aimed at people like me who are maybe one decade away from buying cosy slippers and arthritis medication.
It's weird looking at something that is trying to be edgy but that also knows that young kids probably ignore Gorillaz (I hope not, it's their loss) but also that its target demographic are not as edgy as they used to be.
Look, this is probably more about me than about Gorillaz. Albarn, Hewlett etc are amazingly talented. I am more into the art than the music but they are strong on both fronts. This book just made me reflect on getting old rather than my love of the style. Hey-ho. If you love Hewlett, get his Taschen book. If you have a few quid left over, get this but try to get it cheaply.I have bought so many great art books over the years and I just can't help but feel that this doesn't quite cut it. I guess 'not fitting in' is something Gorillaz is all about but this book is not quite the square peg in the round hole that they may have wanted. Or maybe I'm not.
Absolutely agree with you. An artbook showing the evolution of the Gorillaz along with interviews/narrative etc would be great although I guess that might be too mainstream for them.
This book reminds me a little of Goldtiger which was a humorous pastiche of 60s spy comic serialisations that would appear syndicated in newspapers. This is another humorous pastiche but I think in both cases the people behind the humour tried too hard. I love what I have seen so far of Song Machine. The Gorillaz have certainly not run out of juice at all but I just feel this doesn't do them justice. It seems like someone of a certain age trying to be funny and missing the mark slightly (as Goldtiger did, I feel. It's that knowing humour of the clever nudge-and-wink brigade).
Anyway, I shall stop ranting. One thing I do love is your site and your continued work to bring to our attention some amazing material. I have bought quite a few titles on the basis of your work and am grateful for your blog. Thank you so much.
When you hear the word "almanac," who do you think of? Old farmers? Eric Eskola? Cathy Wurzer? Joe Mauer? It'll probably take you a while to get to Damon Albarn's animated band Gorillaz, but in fact, they now have their very own Almanac.
As "Beatrix Blotter," the volume's fictional editor, puts it in an opening note, Gorillaz Almanac (buy now) "is inspired by the British tradition of comic and pop music annuals, which come out every year and feature cartoon characters, celebrities and pop stars getting up to all kinds of mischief."
Albarn created Gorillaz in the late '90s with artist Jamie Hewlett, originally conceived as a response to the rise (or, as Maria Sherman would point out, the re-rise) of manufactured boy bands. Gorillaz' debut EP, Tomorrow Comes Today, was released in 2000.
If the band was conceived partially as a joke, Albarn gloried in the musical freedom that came with hiding behind four animated alter aliases. The mandate to make music matching Hewlett's cosmopolitan slacker style inspired Albarn to connect with a wide range of contributors, resulting in unclassifiable but undeniably catchy songs with a built-in visual hook.
Two decades later, Gorillaz have become the most successful virtual band in music history (don't trust me: Guinness signed off on it) and have in many respects eclipsed Albarn's Britpop band Blur. Their "live" shows are multimedia spectaculars, and in 2018 they won the Brit Award for Best British Group, beating out London Grammar, Royal Blood, Wolf Alice, and the xx.
Publisher Z2 Comics describe themselves as a company that "helps musicians tell their stories through graphic novels." Their catalog includes titles about Blondie, Cypress Hill, Elvis Presley, Major Lazer, Sturgill Simpson, the Doors, Dan Auerbach, Ludwig von Beethoven, and of course Poppy, another quasi-virtual artist.
Gorillaz Almanac is a romp, a showcase for Hewlett's art and the bizarro humor of writers Ed Caruana and Thomas O'Malley. (If Albarn had any direct involvement, it's uncredited.) Superfans will love all the deep-dive references to Gorillaz songs and projects; for the uninitiated, like me, the Almanac makes an apt introduction to guitarist Noodle, bassist Murdoc, drummer Russel, and keyboardist 2D.
The book's contents include tales from the road penned by "former Gorillaz roadie Hamish Trombone," a surrealistic comic misadventure starring a shipwrecked 2D (lost at sea after "pirates attacked Plastic Beach"), concise Q&As with several Gorillaz collaborators (asked what he'd do with a time machine, Schoolboy Q says he'd go back to 1985 "to tell my mom to **** somebody taller"), reminisces of Russel's Brooklyn childhood, tales of Noodle's samurai adventures, folk art by 2D, and excerpts from the Murdoc-penned screenplay for the Gorillaz movie shelved in the early 2000s (it turns out to star Murdoc as an action hero, with Russel as his sidekick Fat Head).
In keeping with the project's musical generosity, there's space devoted to recommendations of other artists, including Prince ("Raspberry Beret" reminds 2D of a doomed crush on a cafe clerk) and Sounds of Blackness. Russel recommends "the legendary Minnesota ensemble" for music to play to your baby; after that I couldn't help but to the drummer the courtesy of choosing him in the "Which Gorillaz member are you?" flowchart.
Gorillaz have also been on lockdown, we learn, though it would seem their Spaceballs-style interstellar Winnebago would provide safe transit out of the pandemic zone. They've been busy in the studio, though, as their group chat evidences; a CD of the band's latest album, a compilation of tracks from their Song Machine video series, comes with the Almanac.
Lest you doubt fans' devotion to this cartoon quartet, the Almanac includes four densely-packed pages of cosplay costumes. With his distinctive blue hair and iris-less, pupil-free eyes, 2D is a particular favorite, but the green-visaged Murdoc also has his partisans and Russel's "IT'S NOT RAEL" shirt in Charlie Brown yellow also crops up. Even after finishing the Almanac I wasn't entirely sure who each cosplayer was trying to be, but that's okay, I have almost a whole year until it's time for another edition.
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