Album Review: Gorillaz – ‘D-Sides’

By Jeff Swindoll Dec 4, 2007, 19:02 GMT

Gorillaz is not a real band.  Well, says you I got the CD right here in my hand – don’t tell me that they don’t exist.  Well, Gorillaz is a real band in the extent that there’s a CD full of songs, but they’re fronted by four anime characters, 2D, Noodle, Russel Hobbs, and Murdoc Niccals. 

The band was created in 1997 by Damon Albarn (of the band Blur) and Jamie Hewlett (who co-created the comic Tank Girl).  Both of their first albums, ‘Gorillaz’ and ‘Demon Days,’ were enormously successful (even winning the band an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the most successful virtual band). 

Even if the members only exist in cartoon form, there still has to be experimentation and cuts that didn’t make it onto the album – hence ‘D-Sides.’ 

Disc one features B-sides as well as having a new version of “Hong Kong.”  Disc two has remixes by the like of DFA (“Dare”), Soulwax (“Dare” again), Junior Sanchez (“Dare” once again – very popular song to redo it appears), and Schtung Chinese New Year (“Dirty Harry” thought that I was going to put Dare again didn’t ya?). 

Even a virtual band has to cut its teeth somewhere and it’s nice that these have come out.  There are even some sketches of the band members in the liner booklet.  Nice stuff for fans of the most successful virtual band on the planet (and perhaps any other planet).