Neil Quenzer

Watch Full Gorillaz: Reject False icons free. Gorillaz From left to right: Noodle, Murdoc, 2-D, Russel Background information Origin Westbourne Grove, London, England Genres Alternative rock art pop hip hop trip hop electronic Years active 1998?present Labels Parlophone Virgin Warner Associated acts Blur Monkey: Journey to the West Spacemonkeyz De La Soul Del the Funky Homosapien Snoop Dogg The Clash Bobby Womack Fatoumata Diawara Website gorillaz Members Non-virtual: Damon Albarn Jamie Hewlett Remi Kabaka Jr. Virtual: 2-D Murdoc Niccals Russel Hobbs Noodle Past members Virtual: Paula Cracker Cyborg Noodle Ace Gorillaz are a British virtual band created in 1998 by Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett. Producer and A&R executive Remi Kabaka Jr. began collaborating with the band in 2016 after several years providing the voice of Russel Hobbs and was listed as an official member alongside Albarn and Hewlett in the 2019 Gorillaz documentary Gorillaz: Reject False Icons. [1] The band primarily consists of four animated members: Stuart "2-D" Pot, Murdoc Niccals, Noodle, and Russel Hobbs. Their fictional universe is presented in music videos, interviews and short cartoons. In reality, Albarn is the only permanent musical contributor, and often collaborates with other musicians. With Gorillaz, Albarn departed from the distinct Britpop of his band Blur through hip hop, electronic music, and world music through an "eccentrically postmodern " approach. [2] The band's 2001 debut album Gorillaz went triple platinum in the UK and double platinum in Europe and earned the group an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records as the Most Successful Virtual Band. [3] It was nominated for the Mercury Prize, but the nomination was withdrawn at the band's request. [4] Their second studio album, Demon Days (2005), went six times platinum in the UK [5] and double platinum in the US. [6] [7] [8] The third Gorillaz studio album, Plastic Beach, was released on 3 March 2010. The fourth, The Fall, was released on 25 December 2010 as a surprise gift for paying fan club members, then on 18 April 2011 as an official release. The fifth, Humanz, was released after a six-year hiatus on 28 April 2017. [9] Their sixth studio album, The Now Now, was released on 29 June 2018. Gorillaz are currently working on a project named Song Machine which releases new songs every month. [10] Gorillaz have won one Grammy Award, two MTV Video Music Awards, an NME Award and three MTV Europe Music Awards. [11] They have been nominated for ten Brit Awards, and won Best British Group at the 2018 Brit Awards. [12] [13] By 2010, Gorillaz had sold over 20 million records worldwide. [14] History [ edit] Creation (1990?1999) [ edit] Musician Damon Albarn and comic creator Jamie Hewlett met in 1990 when guitarist Graham Coxon, a fan of Hewlett's work, asked him to interview Blur, a band Albarn and Coxon had recently formed. [15] The interview was published in Deadline magazine, home of Hewlett's comic strip Tank Girl. Hewlett initially thought Albarn was "arsey, a wanker"; despite becoming acquaintances with the band, they often did not get on, especially after Hewlett began seeing Coxon's ex-girlfriend Jane Olliver. [15] Despite this, Albarn and Hewlett started sharing a flat on Westbourne Grove in London in 1997. [16] Hewlett had recently broken up with Olliver and Albarn was at the end of his highly publicised relationship with Justine Frischmann of Elastica. [15] The idea to create Gorillaz came about when Albarn and Hewlett were watching MTV. Hewlett said, "If you watch MTV for too long, it's a bit like hell?? there's nothing of substance there. So we got this idea for a virtual band, something that would be a comment on that. " [17] The band originally identified themselves as "Gorilla" and the first song they recorded was "Ghost Train", [18] which was later released as a B-side on their single " Rock the House " and the B-side compilation G Sides. The musicians behind Gorillaz' first incarnation included Albarn, Del the Funky Homosapien, Dan the Automator and Kid Koala, who had previously worked together on the track "Time Keeps on Slipping" for Deltron 3030 's eponymous debut album. [19] Although not released under the Gorillaz name, Albarn has said that "one of the first ever Gorillaz tunes" was Blur 's 1997 single " On Your Own ", which was released for their fifth studio album Blur. [20] Gorillaz (2000?03) [ edit] The band's first release was the EP Tomorrow Comes Today, released on 27 November 2000. The band's first single was " Clint Eastwood " and was released on 5 March 2001. It was produced by hip hop producer Dan the Automator and originally featured UK rap group Phi Life Cypher, but the version that appears on the album features American rapper Del the Funky Homosapien, [21] known on the album as Del tha' Ghost Rapper, a spirit in the band's drummer Russel Hobbs. [22] The Phi Life Cypher version of "Clint Eastwood" appears on the B-side album G Sides. On 26 March 2001, their first full-length album, the self-titled Gorillaz, was released, producing four singles: " Clint Eastwood ", " 19-2000 ", " Rock the House ", and " Tomorrow Comes Today ". In June 2001, "19?2000" a remix of the song was used as the title theme for EA Sports FIFA video game FIFA Football 2002. [23] On 7 December, the song " 911 " was released, a collaboration between Gorillaz and hip hop group D12 (without Eminem) and Terry Hall about the September 11 attacks. [24] Meanwhile, G Sides, a compilation of the B-sides from the Tomorrow Comes Today EP and first three singles, was released in Japan on 12 December. Gorillaz performed at the 2002 Brit Awards in London on 22 February, appearing in 3D animation on four large screens along with rap accompaniment by Phi Life Cypher. The band were nominated for four Brit Awards, including Best British Group, Best British Album and British Breakthrough Act, [25] but did not win any awards. [26] On 1 July 2002, a remix album titled Laika Come Home by Spacemonkeyz vs. Gorillaz was released. It contains most of the songs from Gorillaz' first album, Gorillaz, but remixed in dub and reggae style. [27] On 18 November, a DVD titled Phase One: Celebrity Take Down was released. The DVD contains four promotional videos, the abandoned video for " 5/4 ", the Charts of Darkness documentary, the five Gorilla Bitez (comedic shorts starring the virtual characters), a tour of the website by the MEL 9000 server and more. The DVD's menu was designed much like the band's website and depicts an abandoned Kong Studios. [28] Rumours were circulating at this time that the Gorillaz team were busy preparing a film, but Hewlett said that the film project had been abandoned: "We lost all interest in doing it as soon as we started meeting with studios and talking to these Hollywood executive types, we just weren't on the same page. We said, fuck it, we'll sit on the idea until we can do it ourselves, and maybe even raise the money ourselves. " [29] Demon Days (2004?06) [ edit] The album Demon Days was released on 11 May 2005. The album debuted at No.?1 on the UK Albums Chart. [30] The third single was " Dirty Harry ", which had been released as a promotional single earlier that year. It was released in the United Kingdom on 21 November. The fourth and final single was the double A-side, " Kids with Guns " / " El Mañana ". It was released in the UK on 10 April 2006. [31] In December 2005, Demon Days had sold over a million copies in the UK, making it the UK's fifth best selling album of 2005. [32] Demon Days has since gone six times platinum in the UK, [5] double platinum in the United States, [6] triple platinum in Australia [33] and has sold over 8?million copies worldwide. [34] At the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards in Miami on 28 August, Gorillaz won two awards for " Feel Good Inc. " featuring De La Soul, including the award for Breakthrough Video. [35] Gorillaz performed "Dirty Harry" at the 2006 Brit Awards in London, and the band were nominated for Best British Group, and Best British Album ( Demon Days). [13] Plans were unveiled for Gorillaz to go on a "holographic" world tour in 2007 and 2008. [36] The virtual members would be shown as virtual characters on stage using Musion Eyeliner technology, giving them a lifelike appearance on stage. The virtual characters were first used at the 2005 MTV Europe Music Awards on 3 November, [37] and again at the 2006 Grammy Awards, on 8 February 2006 with the addition of Madonna, where the band played a pre-recorded version of "Feel Good Inc. " [38] All the Kidrobot figures that were released. The black set, red set, special " Dare " Noodle, four-color set, white set and two-tone set During 16 October?2 November, a set of Gorillaz figures were released by Kidrobot to coincide with the release of Demon Days. Two variations of the set were released, known as the Red and Black editions, and a limited edition Noodle from the music video for " Dare " was also released. [39] Three new sets of Gorillaz vinyl figures were released in 2006. The basic set which was limited to 60, 000 was the two-tone set limited to 1, 000 and the white edition which was limited to 4, 000 were released. [40] On 26 October, the Gorillaz autobiography titled Rise of the Ogre by Riverhead Books, [41] was released on UK. [42] 2 November 2006 on US. On 30 October, the Phase Two: Slowboat to Hades DVD was released on UK. 25 October in Japan. 31 October in the US. And 11 November in Australia. It contains the most of the materials released by Gorillaz from 2004 to 2006. The MTV EMAs, Grammys and Brits live performances. Also included is the Gorillaz' MTV Cribs episode, the Phase Two Gorillaz bites, a new Kong Studios guide, a gallery, and short interviews. On 2 June 2006 the hopes for a Gorillaz film were revived, when Hewlett stated that they would be producing the film on their own. Film producer and The Weinstein Company co-chairman, Harvey Weinstein, was

This documentary captures the recording and tours of Humanz and The Now Now. I would have liked to have seen more behind the scenes studio content and less concert footage. Also found it frustrating only hearing 20 second snippets of their songs. Highlights of the film include the version of Busted and Blue with Kelela and Albarn's performance of Cloud of Unknowing.

I was at one of those concerts do it was great to see this footage of the your and see just the incredible amount of artists that have played a part in this amazing music collective. There is no commentary during the documentary but for fans the whole film is a real treat.

To reiterate on the audio issue, the music was not loud enough! Feel Good Inc. sounds great at any volume, but I really wanted to be blown away.

The name, Reject False Icons, is a reference to Phase 2, which I think is alluding to the fact that the film is solely about the "humanz" involved in the behemoth project that is Gorillaz. The film focuses mainly on Jamie, Damon, and the live band, however, a smattering of Jamie's colorful art, flashy music video footage, and live visuals keeps us entertained in the transitions. One unfortunate note is that the older music video footage did not seem to be ready for a giant screen, as much of it was still low-res. The documentary opens up with an homage of the many phases of Gorillaz, finally landing on Jamie's post-apocalyptic/surreal art for Humanz, set to "Tranzformer." The movie is then broken up into three acts - essentially the 'making of' Humanz, Humanz on tour, and The Now Now on tour. Bizarre and cool interludes from Ben Mendelsohn help break up the narrative of the film. To call the movie a traditional documentary is a bit of a stretch. It lacked narrative and was instead a collection of clips and dialogue (with each scene being no more than about 30 seconds long) documenting the Humanz and TNN tours as they progressed. That being said, the film was an absolute treat for die-hard fans of the band. We got to see and hear many early demos from Humanz and The Now Now - including a beautiful rendition of Busted and Blue by Kelela, a banging version of Phoenix on the Hill recorded in Jamaica, and what's potentially a previously-unheard TNN track, Founding Fathers. There were also some very "meme-able" momentz coming from Mr. Albarn. I was delighted by the laugh my theatre got from watching him shuffle across the street in his pajamas, Smoggy declaring he had "a bit of a rough night." My wishlist for the next Gorillaz documentary is perhaps something more interview based, where fans can learn more about the behind-the-scenes thinking that goes into making Gorillaz. For example, how Damon and co. select collaborators, and explaining who the collaborators are to people who aren't YET Gorillaz fans. In comparison to Bananaz, this film comes across as far more polished and professional - reflecting a similar the journey that Gorillaz have taken these last couple of years. On the last night of the tour, Damon thanks the musicians & crew, saying their act had become "top class." While Bananaz may have been better as a look into the process and history, Reject False Icons was an absolute feast of material for fans to geek out on.

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