Humanz (2017)

genre: electropop/hip-hop

favorite track: out of body

Hey, so, I feel like the only person on this entire earth who actually loves this album. The hate is so overblown!!

To give it some context, Gorillaz went into a 7 year hiatus following "Plastic Beach" (Considered by many their very best album). Almost a decade on hiatus, there is a lot of pressure from fans to follow up with something that matches in quality with your magnum-opus. So, to many people's dismay, when "Humanz", an album with an eclectic and new (to Gorillaz) sound came out, many people were disappointed. The main argument I heard in 2017 was, "Why did Gorillaz abandon rock?"

THEY WERE NEVER EXCLUSIVE TO ROCK!!!!!!!!

You had 7 years to listen to 3 studio albums that demonstrated that Damon Albarn was the fucking Avatar of music genres who works with artists from an array of backgrounds. Why are we shocked that Humanz is primarily hip-hop, soul, dance, and pop?

Before I glaze too much though I will admit I am very, very biased. This album came out right when I became obsessed with Gorillaz in middle school, so it does have a huge nostalgia factor for me. Additionally, it is a very bloated album with a bunch of interludes that there is no way anyone enjoys.

Anyways with that out the way, I FUCKING LOVE HUMANZ RAHHHH!!!!! WHEN THE TRACKS ARE GOOD THEY ARE GOOD!!! THE VOCAL BUILD UP BY ZEBRA KATZ IN "OUT OF BODY" IS ORGASMIC AND I FEEL LIKE IM ASCENDING TO THE HEAVENS. The political messaging was as good as always, never on the nose + unapologetic. I love that black creators were given the forefront on this project, and everyone did so great round of applause everyone thank you. The features were AWESOME, Vince Staples, De La Soul (Gorillaz is how I discovered them! Thanks Gorillaz!), the literal GRACE FUCKING JONES!!!

I can admit it isn't perfect, but I genuinely hope that in a few years fans can revisit this one with a different perspective and appreciate it as much as I do.