Plastic Beach is a decent record but it's definitely the sloppiest Gorillaz album to date. For starters, it's the first Gorillaz album that has no producer. With the project now completely in Damon Albarn's hands, the final product is a tad less inspired than previous efforts. The biggest problem is probably sequencing. On the first two Gorillaz records, the first voice you hear is Albarn's, which makes sense as he is the main force behind the project, and to fully feel his presence right away adds to the experience. Oddly enough, now that he is completley in charge, we don't hear him sing until track 4. In the meantime, Snoop Dogg, Bashy, and Kano rap their way through the first few tracks. Snoop Dogg's track, "Welcome To The World Of The Plastic Beach", fares well enough but his presence feels a bit out of place. He's just too famous - the illusion of the Gorillaz can't be upheld.
The music for the most part on the record is top notch synth pop, but it doesn't have the superb structures that
Demon Days had. In fact, the tracks on this album mostly sound like a bunch a keyboard based grooves that Albarn constructed, with vocals then provided later as an afterthought. The songs rarely sound produced in the sense that they were worked on for very long. One exception to this is "Empire Ants", which begins with a gentle sweep of piano flurries before being overtaken by Human League style synths and beat boxes, accompanied by a dreamy vocal provided by Yukimi Nagano. These grooves though should not be discredited for simply sounding not labored over. While they don't sound like the work of several people pooling their resources, they still are great examples of Albarn's knack for sonic textures and groovy hooks. "On Melancholy Hill" is a wonderful synthpop ballad that seems to glow with blissful memories.
While the hip-hop tracks on this record mostly pale in comparison to past efforts, De La Soul manage to make a great sequel to "Feel Good Inc." with "Superfast Jellyfish", and Mos Def's distorted vocal on "Stylo" sounds like a subway ride announcement from the future, on a great early 80's danceclub vamp. His vocals on the track "Sweepstakes" however, are kind of unbearable. While the album's first few tracks feel a little off, the ending just doesn't seem to work at all. Personally, I feel the album would sound a lot better if it ended with "To Binge" at track 14, and not even bothering with "Cloud Of Unknowing" and "Pirate Jet". Safe to sure though, there is a good record on
Plastic Beach, it just might have benefited from a shrewder editing hand.
Despite any problems with the album's flow, the songs for the most part hold up. Here is a clip of Gorillaz performing on the Colbert Report featuring The Clash's Paul Simonon and Mick Jones (as well as deep soul singer Bobby Womack) followed by a rather funny interview with Colbert himself.
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