Plastic Beach

So I got this album the other day, pretty much the first big album of 2010, for me at least. I don't what has happened to me, but I feel as if I've reached the stage where if it sells in HMV it doesn't interest me, but if it's harder to get hold of I'd rather not bother.

Either way, this album came pretty much out of the blue, albeit with the heavily previewed single "Stylo" complete with awesome video. The single itself, however, possessed the distinct side effect of making me want to listen to lots more Mos Def. Lots and lots.

But before I get onto that its time to listen to the album itself. Its pitched somewhere between the zany Blur-like experimentation of Gorillaz and the polished conceptualisation of Demon Days. There are colloborations yes, including a verse-long cameo from (whatever happened to?) Snoop Dogg, which, as I read somewhere else, is possibly the best music he's made in a decade.

Others included are the aforementioned Mos Def, The Fall's Mark E. Smith (As opposed to Mark E. Smith's The Fall) and a rather pedestrian Clash reformation between Paul Simonon and Mick Jones. And many more.

The only danger here is that Plastic Beach is so colloboration heavy that 2-D's (or rather, Albarn's) vocals occur so infrequently that you forget its a Gorillaz album at all. Upcoming single "Superfast Jellyfish" could well be just the last in a long line of crazy collaborations by both De La Soul and Gruff Rhys.

What's happening here then, what with the dramatic shift between albums as well as the change of production (Albarn himself here, taking over from Dangermouse on Demon Days and Dan The Automator on Gorillaz), there's a danger of this virtual band losing their soul.

While you can hardly accuse them of running out of ideas, as the way this band are marketed and performed is still as startingly original as they were when they first came to prominense almost a decade ago, there's a danger of the gimmick taking over.

That said, the vast majority of this album is absolutely fantastic, with "Stylo", "Empire Ants", "Plastic Beach" and "On Melancholy Hill" all brilliant tracks in their own right, there's something vaguely wrong.

I would suggest it could perhaps be Albarn and Hewlett's loss of enthusiasm in this project coming across here. Both claimed that Demon Days would be the last Gorillaz album and Monkey essentially their last colloboration, whilst we, as fans screamed and protested the injustice as much as we did beg for "More films like the Matrix". Luckily, we have spared quite what we wished for this time, and there is more than enough here to satisfy those who have been with the group from the beginning.

It just all feels a bit... half-hearted.

Still, enough for a 7/10.