Jan 27, 2023 By Mark Redfern

Damon Albarn’s virtual band Gorillaz are releasing a new album, Cracker Island, on February 24 via Parlophone. Now they have shared another song from it, “Silent Running,” which features Adeleye Omotayo. More

Jan 10, 2023 By Mark Redfern

Coachella has announced the lineup for their 2023 festival. Frank Ocean, BLACKPINK, and Bad Bunny are the headliners. The lineup also features Wet Leg, Gorillaz, Weyes Blood, Björk, boygenius, Alex G, Magdalena Bay, Blondie, The Chemical Brothers, Underworld, Christine and the Queens, Charli XCX, Sleaford Mods, Snail Mail, The Breeders, and many others. More

Dec 09, 2022 By Mark Redfern (with Joey Arnone and Caleb Campbell)

Welcome to the 42nd Songs of the Week of 2022. Despite things starting to wind down a bit for the holidays, there were plenty of contenders this week. More

Dec 08, 2022 By Joey Arnone

Damon Albarn’s virtual band Gorillaz have shared a new single, “Skinny Ape.” The song will be performed live by the band at 2:30 pm ET on December 17th in Times Square and 14:00 GMT on December 18th in Piccadilly Circus. Directed by Jamie Hewlett and Fx Goby, the ‘Skinny Ape’ performances are created by Nexus Studios and utilize Google’s ARCore Geospatial API, using AR to transform public spaces. More

Sep 02, 2022 By Mark Redfern (with Joey Arnone and Caleb Campbell)

Welcome to the 33rd Songs of the Week of 2022. Lots of British artists this week! Including the entire Top 3. This week after much inner-dialogue, we settled on a Top 12. More

Aug 31, 2022 By Joey Arnone

Damon Albarn’s virtual band Gorillaz have announced the release of a new album, Cracker Island, and have also shared a new single from the album, “New Gold,” which features Tame Impala and The Pharcyde’s Bootie Brown. More

Jun 24, 2022 By Mark Redfern (with Joey Arnone)

Welcome to the 25th Songs of the Week of 2022. Whereas last week we had a supersized Top 15, this week the pickings were slimmer, with a more back down to earth Top 10. More

Jun 22, 2022 By Mark Redfern

Damon Albarn’s virtual band Gorillaz have shared a new song, “Cracker Island.” It features Thundercat and right now is a standalone single. More

May 16, 2022 By Joey Arnone

Damon Albarn’s virtual band Gorillaz have announced a North American tour for fall 2022. Tickets will go on sale this Friday (May 20) at 10 a.m. local time. More

Oct 14, 2021 By Mark Redfern

Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz is releasing a new solo album, The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows, on November 12 via Transgressive. Now he has shared its fifth single, the horn-backed “The Tower of Montevideo.” He’s also shared a separate video where he performs the song live with his backing band. Also, Albarn recently performed a show at London’s iconic Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and has shared a video from the show of him playing Blur’s “This Is a Low,” from the band’s 1994 album, Parklife, as well as “The Moon Exalted” from his 2012 album/opera soundtrack Dr Dee and “Royal Mountain Blue” from the new album. More

Sep 01, 2021 By Mark Redfern

Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz is releasing a new solo album, The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows, on November 12 via Transgressive. Now he has shared its third single, the haunted ballad “Particles.” He’s also shared a separate video where he performs the song live with his backing band. More

Aug 26, 2021 By Joey Arnone

Damon Albarn’s virtual band Gorillaz have shared a new three-track EP titled Meanwhile after performing all three songs at a live concert at O2 Arena in London two weeks ago. The EP features guest appearances by artists AJ Tracey, Jelani Blackman, Barrington Levy, and Alicai Harley. More

Jul 09, 2021 By Mark Redfern

Welcome to the 26th Songs of the Week of 2021. The American music industry pretty took Monday off due to Sunday’s July 4th holiday, so we expected slimmer pickings this week. It was not to be, thanks for some exciting album announcements. We settled on a Top 11 this week. More

Jul 06, 2021 By Mark Redfern

Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz is releasing a new solo album, The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows, on November 12 via Transgressive. Now he has shared its second single, “Polaris.” He’s also shared a separate video where he performs the song live with his backing band. More

Jun 22, 2021 By Mark Redfern

Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz has announced a new solo album, The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows, and shared its title track. More

Oct 01, 2020 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s virtual band Gorillaz have shared a new song, “The Pink Phantom,” via a video for it. The song and video features Elton John and 6BLACK. It’s episode seven of their Song Machine video series. Watch it below. More

Sep 11, 2020 By Christopher Roberts

Welcome to the 36th Songs of the Week of 2020. This week’s list is a supersized one, with 12 instead of 10 songs (and last week we only had eight), which is surprising considering Monday was the Labor Day holiday here in America, meaning few new songs were shared that day. More

Sep 09, 2020 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s virtual band Gorillaz have shared a new song, “Strange Timez,” via a video for it. The song and video features Robert Smith of The Cure. It’s episode six of their Song Machine video series. Gorillaz have also announced that all the songs from season one of Song Machine will be collected in a new album, Song Machine: Season One - Strange Timez. More

Jul 20, 2020 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s virtual band Gorillaz have shared a new song, “PAC-MAN,” via a video for it. The song and video features Schoolboy Q. It’s episode five of their Song Machine video series. More

Jun 09, 2020 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s virtual band Gorillaz have shared a new song, “Friday 13th,” via a video for it. The song and video features French-British rapper and singer Octavian. It’s episode four of their Song Machine video series. More

May 20, 2020 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s virtual band Gorillaz were the musical guest on last night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! While the animated members of the band are usually front and center, this time Albarn performed their recent single “Aries” as a duet with his virtual doppelgänger 2-D. More

May 04, 2020 By Christopher Roberts

Over the weekend Damon Albarn’s virtual band Gorillaz shared a new song, “How Far?” It features Afrobeat legend Tony Allen, who died late last week, which is why Gorillaz shared the song now, as a tribute to the drummer and Fela Kuti collaborator. More

Apr 10, 2020 By Christopher Roberts

Welcome to the fourteenth Songs of the Week of 2020. Our new normal of being under lockdown during COVID-19 continues. More

Apr 10, 2020 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s virtual band Gorillaz have shared a new song, “Aries,” that features Peter Hook (Peter Hook and the Light, Joy Division, New Order) and Georgia, via a video for the track. It’s the third episode of their Song Machine video series. More

Feb 28, 2020 By Christopher Roberts

Welcome to the eighth Songs of the Week of 2020. It was busy week of new album announcements and surprise EPs. That led to another super-sized edition. More

Feb 27, 2020 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s virtual band Gorillaz have shared a new song, “Désolé,” that features Malian musician Fatoumata Diawara, via a video for the track. It’s the second episode of their Song Machine video series. More

Jan 31, 2020 By Christopher Roberts

Welcome to the fourth Songs of the Week of 2020. There are lots of bass-heavy dance-y songs in the Top 4 this week. Some of this week’s best tracks were connected to albums newly announced this week, others were standalone singles, or additional new songs from previously announced albums. More

Jan 30, 2020 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s virtual band Gorillaz have shared a new song, “Momentary Bliss,” that features slowthai and Slaves, via a video for the track. It’s also the first episode of their Song Machine video series. More

Oct 23, 2018 By Christopher Roberts

The Good, The Bad, & The Queen have announced their long-awaited sophomore album, Merrie Land, and shared its title track. The band features Damon Albarn (of Blur and Gorillaz), Afrobeat legend Tony Allen, Paul Simonon (of The Clash), and Simon Tong (of The Verve). More

Sep 13, 2018 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz released a new album, The Now Now, back in June via Warner Bros. Now they have shared a video for “Tranz.” Gorillaz co-founder Jamie Hewlett and Nicos Livesey directed the video, which a press release says in a tongue-in-cheek manner is the cartoon band’s first live performance since their 2010 MTV EMA appearance. More

Jul 13, 2018 By Christopher Roberts

Hello again. We haven’t done a Songs of the Week for almost five weeks, since June 9. We were on vacation from mid to late June and then when we returned there really weren’t enough compelling songs last week to justify doing Songs of the Week lists, mainly because of the July 4th holiday being smack dab in the middle of the week and so labels mainly avoided sharing new songs. More

Jul 12, 2018 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz released a new album, The Now Now, last month via Warner Bros. Now they have shared a pair of remixes for the album’s first single, “Humility,” via videos for each remix. DJ Koze‘s version is a more standard remix and the video just features a warped version of the album’s artwork. The remix by Superorganism, however, is more radical, with that band’s singer Orono Noguchi contributing new vocals and appearing in a remixed version of the song’s video. More

Jun 29, 2018 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz released a new album, The Now Now, today via Warner Bros. Now that it’s out, you can stream the whole thing here. More

Jun 21, 2018 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz are releasing a new album, The Now Now, on June 29 via Warner Bros. Now they have shared another song from the album, “Hollywood,” which features Snoop Dogg and Jamie Principle. Listen below via a “visualiser” video for the song that features Snoop Dogg, followed by Gorillaz’s upcoming tour dates. More

Jun 14, 2018 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz are releasing a new album, The Now Now, on June 29 via Warner Bros. Now they have shared another song from the album, “Fire Flies.” Listen below via a “visualiser” video for the song, followed by Gorillaz’s upcoming tour dates. More

Jun 07, 2018 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz are releasing a new album, The Now Now, on June 29 via Warner Bros. The cartoon band previously shared two tracks from it, album opener “Humility” (which features the great jazz guitarist George Benson and was our #1 Song of the Week) and “Lake Zurich,” More

Jun 01, 2018 By Christopher Roberts

There were some solid contenders for this week’s Songs of the Week list. It was a toss up between #1 and #2, it could’ve gone either way. If we were doing a “Best Use of a Song in a TV Show This Week” list, then first place probably would’ve gone to the use of U2’s “With or Without You” in the surprising and amazing series finale of FX’s The Americans. More

May 31, 2018 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz released a new album, Humanz, just over a year ago, but now they are already returning with another new album, The Now Now. There have been Internet rumblings about the album in the last week, but now the album has been officially announced and the cartoon band has shared two tracks from it, album opener “Humility” (which features the great jazz guitarist George Benson) and “Lake Zurich,” which is a near instrumental track. More

Jan 05, 2018 By Stephen Mayne

It would be inaccurate to say a lot of us started 2017 with optimism overflowing, but there was a certain relief at having put 2016 to bed. While the misery of a Trump White House still lay ahead, some comfort came from sweeping away the detritus of that car crash of an election. More

Dec 01, 2017 By Stephen Mayne

To North Korea we go this week. Following yet another successful launch, we walk back a few decades to summarize the current situation threatening us all. Beneath the prospect of nuclear annihilation, there’s also change afoot in the White House, an insulting president, tax reform, and the Grammys. More

Nov 28, 2017 By Christopher Roberts

The 2018 Grammy Awards nominations have been announced. Childish Gambino, JAY-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Lorde, and Bruno Mars are all vying for Album of the Year. Arcade Fire, Gorillaz, LCD Soundsystem, Father John Misty, and The National compete for Best Alternative Music Album. More

Oct 31, 2017 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz released a new album, Humanz, back in April via Warner Bros. Now they have shared a new song, “Garage Palace,” via a visualizer video that looks like an 8-bit video game. More

Sep 15, 2017 By Stephen Mayne

This week Benjamin Clementine discusses the inspirations for his new record and the problems he sees around him, plus we round-up Trump’s deal-cutting, hurricanes, mass persecution in Myanmar, The Beatles on the EU, and Mavis Staples on the state of America. More

Aug 07, 2017 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz released a new album, Humanz, back in April via Warner Bros. Now they have shared a video for “Strobelite,” a song that features Peven Everett. Raoul Skinbeck directed the clip, which features the animated band members hitting the club with real live humans (including Vince Staples and Savages’ Jehnny Beth, who are both featured on the album, although not this song). More

Jun 08, 2017 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz released a new album, Humanz, back in April via Warner Bros. Now they have shared a brand new song not found on the album, “Sleeping Powder,” via its video. More

May 26, 2017 By Stephen Mayne

This politics column thing has been rolling along for a few weeks now and it’s time to move to the next level. Here, and from now on, you’ll find different sections bringing a main story, a brief news round-up, words direct from musicians themselves, and the song of the week. More

May 04, 2017 By Christopher Roberts

Austin City Limits have announced the lineup of their 2017 festival to go down in the Texas capitol this October. The event is headlined by Gorillaz, The xx, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Killers, Martin Garrix, and Chance the Rapper. More

Apr 28, 2017 By Christopher Roberts

Here we highlight nine albums due out today that we feel are most worth hearing. We have also included Amazon links for each album. If you click through those links and buy the album (or anything else on Amazon once you’ve clicked through) then Amazon rewards us with a sales percentage. More

Apr 28, 2017 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz released a new album, Humanz, today via Warner Bros. Last night the band stopped by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to perform “Let Me Out.” More

Apr 24, 2017 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz are releasing a new album, Humanz, this Friday (April 28) via Warner Bros. and now they have shared another song from it, “The Apprentice,” mere days before the album’s release date. The track features Rag’n'Bone Man, Zebra Katz, and RAY BLK and appears on the deluxe edition of the album. More

Apr 17, 2017 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz are releasing a new album, Humanz, on April 28 via Warner Bros. Previously they have shared videos for “Hallelujah Money,” which featured the guest vocals of Mercury Prize winner Benjamin Clementine, and “Saturnz Barz,” which featured “Popcan.” More

Apr 06, 2017 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz are releasing a new album, Humanz, on April 28 via Warner Bros. More

Mar 23, 2017 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz have long been teasing a new album and back in January they finally shared a new song and video, “Hallelujah Money,” which featured the guest vocals of Mercury Prize winner Benjamin Clementine. More

Jan 19, 2017 By Christopher Roberts

Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz have long been teasing a new album and now they have finally shared a new song and video, “Hallelujah Money.” More

Feb 02, 2015 By Mike Hilleary

After enduring the usual non-committal statements from over the years from Blur’s Damon Albarn about the future of his animated musical side-project Gorillaz, co-creator Jamie Hewlett finally confirmed that he and Albarn are working on a follow-up to the band’s 2011 album The Fall. More

Oct 07, 2013 By Mike Hilleary

Yesterday Brit-pop veteran Damon Albarn stopped by Dermot O’Leary’s BBC Radio 2 program where he served as guest DJ. More

Mar 07, 2012 By Cody Ray Shafer

Last year, Damon Albarn wrote and starred in the opera Dr. Dee, and will be releasing the music in its entirety on May 8. Dr. Dee is based on the life of 16th century scientist and advisor to Queen Elizabeth, John Dee. More

Feb 29, 2012 By Mike Hilleary

After getting a brief behind-the-scenes snippet a while back, the official music video for “DoYaThing,” the Converse-created collaboration between Gorillaz, André 3000, and LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, has been given a proper debut this morning. More

Feb 24, 2012 By Mike Hilleary

Remember yesterday when “DoYaThing,” the Converse-sponsored music collaboration between Gorillaz, LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, and André 3000 turned out to be just a part of a much larger cut and that it would see the light of day at a later date? More

Feb 23, 2012 By Mike Hilleary

“DoYaThing,” the collaborative new cut by by Gorillaz, André 3000, and LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy as part of Converse’s “Three Artists, One Song,” music project, is now available for download. More

Feb 15, 2012 By Mike Hilleary

As previously reported, English animated rock group Gorillaz (aka Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett) have collaborated on a new track with LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and André 3000 as part of an ongoing music project by Converse called “Three Artists, One Song.” More

Feb 09, 2012 By Mike Hilleary

As previously reported, shoe manufacturer Converse announced that they would be teaming up with the virtual band Gorillaz for an upcoming collection of uniquely designed footwear. More

Nov 16, 2011 By Mi Tran

Converse announced today the launch of a new collection of footwear designed by virtual band Gorillaz. More

Oct 05, 2011 By Natasha Moningka

In celebration of ten successful years in the music biz, British musical phenomenon Gorillaz, will release The Singles Collection: 2001-2011 on November 29. More

Jun 30, 2011 By Margot Cooper Gruen

Blur frontman and Gorillaz mastermind Damon Albarn has created Dr Dee: An English Opera in collaboration with director Rufus Norris. Check out the new song from the opera, “The Reigning Queen.” More

Dec 15, 2010 By Laura Studarus

After rumors, speculation, and plain old fascination at the thought of creating an entire album on an iPad, today Damon Albarn confirmed the title of Gorillaz’s next album. More

Dec 09, 2010 By Laura Studarus

Recently, we told you about Gorillaz leadman Damon Albarn’s obsession with his iPad and plans to record an album on it. Now, it appears completion of the technology-friendly album isn’t far behind.

Dec 07, 2010 By Laura Studarus

Overcome by the holiday spirit Gorillaz released a video for Plastic Beach quasi-title track, “Welcome to the Plastic Beach.” We have the clip. More

Nov 15, 2010 By Laura Studarus

Gorillaz tap into their inner Steve Zissou in new aquatic-themed video for Plastic Beach single, “Doncamatic (All Played Out).” More

Nov 12, 2010 By Laura Studarus

Relentlessly creative Damon Albarn—who recently announced the formation of a new band with Flea and Tony Allen—is hard at work on a Gorillaz album. More

Nov 03, 2010 By Laura Studarus

Damon Albarn—he of Blur, The Good The Bad & The Queen, Gorillaz, and Mali Music—has formed a band with drummer Tony Allen, and bassist Flea—who has been known to hang out with Thom Yorke’s Atoms for Peace when not working on his day job in Red Hot Chili Peppers. How do any of these people find time to sleep? More

Oct 08, 2010 By Laura Studarus

In addition to last night’s stop at The Late Show With David Letterman, Gorillaz hit the stage for a 45-minute gig at the Ed Sullivan Theater. We have the video. More

Jul 23, 2010 By Laura Studarus

Damon Albarn and his cartoon gang Gorillaz are heading out on a world tour in support of third album, Plastic Beach. We have the full schedule. More

Jun 28, 2010 By Hong Le

Despite headliners U2 having to cancel their appearance, Glastonbury, one of the biggest and greatest music festivals, still seems to have been wholly successful this past weekend (even the English weather cooperated). There were many surprises at the 40th Glastonbury, including Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood performing “Karma Police”; Shakira covering The xx’s “Islands”; Stevie Wonder paying a tribute to Michael Jackson, and many more. Check out the videos. More

Apr 23, 2010 By Laura Studarus

Last night Gorillaz stopped by The Colbert Report to play “Stylo” from recent album Plastic Beach. We have the videos. More

Apr 20, 2010 By Mark Redfern

Day three of Coachella 2010 more than made up for a lackluster day two, with set after set of strong artists and ending with perhaps the three best performances of the whole festival, all in a row: Pavement, Thom Yorke, and Gorillaz. It would have been nice if the wealth of great artists had been spread out a little bit more over the three days, but then again, Sunday wouldn’t have been so strong if they had scheduled it that way. Here’s what I saw on the last day of Coachella: Local Natives, Owen Pallett, Mayer Hawthorne, Deerhunter, Florence and the Machine, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jonsi, Spoon, Phoenix, Pavement, Thom Yorke, and Gorillaz. More

Jan 20, 2010 By Laura Studarus

Cartoon rockers Gorillaz return March 9th with Plastic Beach, their first album in five years. Always the pranksters, the press release describes the album as such: “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.” More

Jan 19, 2010 By Mark Redfern

One of North America’s most anticipated music festivals, Coachella, has announced its 2010 line-up. The three-day festival, which takes place in the California desert near Palm Springs April 16 - 18, will feature Jay-Z, Muse, and Gorillaz as the headliners. Other highlights include: Public Image Limited, The Specials, Grace Jones, Echo and the Bunnymen, Pavement, Sly and the Family Stone, Devo, LCD Soundsystem, Vampire Weekend, Grizzly Bear, Fever Ray, She & Him, Yeasayer, MGMT, Hot Chip, Dirty Projectors, Mew, Camera Obscura, Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros, Thom Yorke????, Phoenix, Spoon, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Yo La Tengo, Deerhunter, The Big Pink, Florence and the Machine, Owen Pallett, and Local Natives.

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Sep 24, 2009 By Mark Redfern

Damon Albarn, he of Blur and Gorillaz, is in the running to be the artistic director for the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony, according to the British newspaper The Independent. Albarn has had preliminary discussions with the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Locog). He is one of several people in the running for job. Oscar-nominated film director Stephen Daldry (The Reader, Billy Elliot) is also a strong contender for the position. Locog has also considered having four different artistic directors for the opening and closing ceremonies of both the Olympics and Paralympic Games. It could take up to six months for an artist director or artist directors to be chosen. More

Sep 01, 2009 By Michele Yamamoto

The Horrors have been tapped by Damon Albarn for a collaboration on the upcoming Gorillaz album. More

Aug 18, 2022 By Max Pilley

This time last week, Under the Radar were in Oslo for Øya Festival. Here’s what we saw. More

Jul 16, 2018 By Lily Moayeri

Gorillaz’s new album The Now Now is to last year’s Humanz as the group’s 2010 album The Fall is to its close proximity predecessor, Plastic Beach. More

Apr 28, 2017 By Scott Dransfield

There are many reasons why Gorillaz are a fascinating band, foremost of which is the way they skirt the question of identity. More

May 20, 2011 By Jessica Misener

Gorillaz’ latest album, The Fall, was recorded on an iPad. Sounds gimmicky? It probably is. Damon Albarn, after all, has never embraced subtlety, whether in his swaggering work as the frontman of Blur or on his own, staging Chinese operas. More

Apr 20, 2010 By Mark Redfern

Day three of Coachella 2010 more than made up for a lackluster day two, with set after set of strong artists and ending with perhaps the three best performances of the whole festival, all in a row: Pavement, Thom Yorke, and Gorillaz. It would have been nice if the wealth of great artists had been spread out a little bit more over the three days, but then again, Sunday wouldn’t have been so strong if they had scheduled it that way. Here’s what I saw on the last day of Coachella: Local Natives, Owen Pallett, Mayer Hawthorne, Deerhunter, Florence and the Machine, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jonsi, Spoon, Phoenix, Pavement, Thom Yorke, and Gorillaz. More

Mar 26, 2010 By Jillian Mapes

2001. Boy bands continued to reign, and music fans, for the most part, still bought physical CDs at some store called Best Buy (you might have heard of it). So naturally, when Gorillaz’s self-titled debut was released that year, there was something incredibly refreshing about it. More