A Plastic Review

By Thomas Panaccione, Cartoonist

Plastic Beach, the new Gorillaz album that launches Tuesday, March 9th, is a collaboration of many artists with Damon Albarn over a course of seventeen tracks. The theme is a light environmental message, the location is a small island paradise made up of clustered plastic and junk, and the music is a blend of rap, 80\’s era throwback, slow ballads and the occasional nod to modern consumerism. There is a large mix of tracks in Plastic Beach, and it seems that Albarn has followed the trend that D-Sides sort of predicted with slower and peaceful tracks. I\’ve seen people write comments by people online saying they were flat-out bored with the album, and others praising the album for its individual tracks.

The first two tracks go hand in hand: As the Orchestral Intro plays, you are swept along the miles of simple ocean waves to a white building jutting out of a tanned sculpture of garbage: toothpaste caps, blenders, ashtrays…you name it. The extension to the Intro, Welcome to the World of Plastic Beach, features Snoop Dog as he says what he came to say and then just leaves. He doesn\’t make much of an impression, but for some reason I don\’t think anyone expected that much of him to begin with.

White Flag features Bashy, Kano, and even the National Orchestra for Arabic Music. The Arabic strings and rap don\’t really compliment and end up clashing each with other. However, the song\’s message is clear and refreshing, so maybe it\’s worth listening to.

Rhinestone Eyes is a slow, electronica melody that really sets the tone for the Album, and is one of the best tracks on the song. If nothing else, it really feels the most like an iconic Gorillaz song.

Stylo was the single Gorillaz released before Plastic Beach, so many people have had the chance to listen to it and weigh their opinion. Many people didn\’t admit to liking it, but I find it to be a more interesting track than at first glance. It looks like an evolution of Rockit, my favorite track on D-Sides, and I think it benefits from Bobby Womack\’s mid-track sermon, as crazy as it is.

Superfast Jelly Fish is…very odd. It\’s a jingle for a made-up fast food chain that really piles on the wacky and the subversive doled out by Gruff Rhys and De La Soul, all to a soundtrack you\’d expect from a Spongebob Squarepants cartoon. Again, like White Flag, the message is more important than the song, but even then I caught myself singing it to myself. I mean, what did you expect? It\’s a jingle; it\’s supposed to be catchy.

Empire Ants is another great track, very somber, world-weary and the like. It starts off with some ambient music you might expect from a game like Killer7(seamless transition to videogames), and leaves you with a vision of an electronic city of wonder, endlessly moving on. If you liked “Hong Kong” on the Gorillaz\’s D-Sides album, you may have flashbacks to that with Empire Ants. The biggest gripe I have with this track is that it\’s placed smack-dab in the middle of the album, and I think that it would have been stronger toward the end of the album.

I\’m not too thrilled with Glitter Freeze. With a small cameo by Mark E Smith and an emphasis on repeating beats,, it acts as the segway between the first and second half of the album, like “Punk” and “White Light” from Gorillaz and Demon Days. But at about four minutes it\’s too long and overwrought. Oddly, whenever I listen to it, I\’m drawn back to the nostalgic videogames of old. Doesn\’t it sound like it belongs in a Kirby game or something?

Some Kind of Nature is captivating in its own special sort of way. Maybe it\’s the simple meandering song, maybe it\’s Lou Reed\’s meandering vocals, but whatever it is makes the track what it is: infectious, memorable, and so forth. This is probably my favorite track on Plastic Beach, though I didn\’t really have expectations for Lou Reed. That\’s what happens when you\’re as oblivious to music artists as I am: you just don\’t know what to expect.

On Melancholy Hill is like Empire Ants: a sedate stroll that feels both happy and sad. It\’s likeable enough, but rather lightweight. It doesn\’t hit you the same way Demon Days\’ El Mañana did, and while it\’s a decent track it just doesn\’t make that big an impression on me.

Much like the track right before it, Broken is another sad, though slower ballad. And once again, I have to say that there\’s nothing in this track for me. The pacing is sort of plodding, and the lyrics seem to have trouble fitting with the beat.

I can almost completely assure you, right now, that you will not like Sweepstakes the first time you hear it. Maybe not the second time you hear it. But when you get a hang of the beat and Mos Def\’s rapping, this track comes together gloriously. The song only really unlocks when the separate parts of the track all come together in the finale.

Plastic Beach sets the mood with the sort of opening I\’d expect for a gritty Western showdown or even a Samurai standoff. It then becomes more somber, like Rhinestone Eyes. It sticks more in my memory than On Melancholy Hill or Broken, though I don\’t know whether the use of Talk Box helps or hurts the track overall. I\’m just glad they only used it for one track and one track only, is all I\’ll say about it.

To Binge signals the wrap-up of the album, with a drawn-out, emotion-grabbing duet with Little Dragon and 2-D. There are people who see this one as one of their favorites, but I can\’t say I like it very much. It\’s drenched with sappy feelings and never takes off and melancholy and other nasty things I have to say about it. But then again, maybe that\’s what those other people find attractive about the song, I suppose.

Cloud of Unknowing, featuring Bobby Womack again, is not as emotional as To Binge, but I can\’t say I like it any better. Which is confusing to me, because plenty of critics say that this song wrapped up the album the best. Even though I know Bobby Womack is some sort of R & B legend, I feel like this shouldn\’t have even been in the album at all. The slow pace, the there-and-its-gone speed of it…I\’m not sure what to feel, other than the urge to skip to the next track.

Finishing off an album can be a tricky thing to do. Do you save the best for last? Do you end on a lesser note to build up anticipation for the next album? In the case of Pirate Jet, apparently the answer can be “neither.” I have no idea why they chose to put this track here at the end rather than a bit earlier, when the album could\’ve used it the most. It\’s catchy but not frantic, memorable but over too soon, and worst of all, feels like it\’s setting up for another track to come right after it. But, no, that\’s the end of the album.

Whether or not Plastic Beach appeals to you will become one of the main selling points of this album: do you want an album you can dance to, and impress your friends with? Or do you want something for yourself, to sit lazily around listening to? The album becomes easier to listen to after you\’ve listened to it a few times, which is better than getting an album you love at first and grow to hate every time you hear it. Even so, the album feels very mismatched, with songs in places that they don\’t really belong in. Also, unlike Gorillaz and Demon Days, there are not many real standouts to make this an absolute must-buy, like Tomorrow Comes Today or (of course) Feel Good Inc. As far as I can tell, the closest tracks to standouts in Plastic Beach are Rhinestone Eyes and Stylo. But the standouts are not always the best that the album has to offer, even on Demon Days. As good as Feel Good Inc. was, I can say honestly that I liked All Alone better, or even Every Planet We Reach Is Dead. Those tracks are often overlooked, and in many ways Plastic Beach is the same case.

Here is my final verdict on Plastic Beach: You will not like every single track on the album. Such a thing might be true about most albums, but for Plastic Beach it\’s a defining feature: With so many different styles and tracks, everyone\’s bound to have a different group of favorites.

Bottom line: Buy this if you thought the tracks in D-Sides had potential. Or, to put it in simpler terms, buy this if you like slower electronica ballads compared to fast rock and pop.

Score:9/17, being the number of tracks I enjoyed out of the entire album.