Tracks
1. “Orchestral Intro”
2. “Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach” (with Snoop Dogg)
3. “White Flag” (with Bashy and Kano)
4. “Rhinestone Eyes”
5. “Stylo” (with Mos Def featuring Bobby Womack)
6. “Superfast Jellyfish” (with De La Soul and Gruff Rhys)
7. “Empire Ants” (with Yukimi Nagano)
8. “Glitter Freeze” (with Mark E. Smith)
9. “Some Kind of Nature” (with Lou Reed)
10. “On Melancholy Hill”
11. “Broken”
12. “Sweepstakes” (with Mos Def)
13. “Plastic Beach” (with Mick Jones & Paul Simonon)
14. “To Binge” (with Yukimi Nagano)
15. “Cloud of Unknowing” (featuring Bobby Womack)
16. “Pirate Jet”
(c) 2010 Parlophone and Virgin Records
Plastic Beach
Gorillaz
2001
Damon Albern, the creator of the virtual bad Gorillaz, was inspired to create the album Plastic Beach while walking on a local beach. In an interview with The Guardian, he noted that “[he] was just looking for all the plastic within the sand.”
The album draws on the musical talents of artists ranging from Snoop Dogg to Clash lead singer Mick Jones and beyond to weave a meditation on humanity’s place in the world in relation to the environment and how our actions impact the planet. Plastic features heavily in the lyrics, including in Lou Reed’s contribution to the song Some Kind of Nature:
Some kind of nature
Some kind of soul
Some kind of mixture
Some kind of goal
Some kind of majesty
Some chemical load
Some kind of metal made up from glue
Some kind of plastic I could wrap around you
The title track offers up a mantra-like reflection on waste and its impacts, intoning phrases like “to the dark dark seas comes the only whale” and “It’s a Styrofoam deep sea landfill” before a descent into an electronic break hinted at by prior references to “automated computer speech.”
The overall message is that of a lament, pleading for forgiveness. And for awareness.
Ethan Harrison
Paul C Babin