Tynan's Anger

Arts & Culture Commentary from a Loving Digital Skeptic

[SONGS OF THE DECADE] #6 Gorillaz – Clint Eastwood

Posted on | December 25, 2009 | No Comments

SONGS OF THE DECADE #6

[For more info, read the Ground Rules of The Song of The Decade List]

Gorillaz – Clint Eastwood (2001)


Before this song, Damon Albarn’s most visible success in the U.S. was little more than an elaborate prank: “Song 2″ spoofed grunge and became a grunge hit, and Albarn, the greatest British pop musician of the 90′s, was able to look across the Atlantic and laugh.

Eventually, the joke got old, and Albarn decided to let his best song also be his most popular in the U.S. It’s still successful in an Albarn-ish way, as the assumption that it’s somehow miraculous that such a weird act can become popular assumes that casual music fans care about more than a funny video and a catchy chorus.

Like Nirvana did a decade earlier, Gorillaz brought a series of widely disparate cross sections of rock and roll into an accessible pop package without sacrificing anything artistically. The differences between “Clint Eastwood” and “Teen Spirit” were a) the musical subcultures Gorillaz was working with had all taken place in the mainstream, and b) rather than bring those influences into the limelight out of a sense of duty, Albarn got to work with musicians he actually liked as people, including Tank Girl creator Jamie Hewlitt, underground stars Del the Funky Homosapien and Brian Burton, and other musicians that still somehow remain anonymous.

Those distinctions are only important to those who want to see what’s behind the Gorilllaz screen; what Gorillaz revealed with their breakthrough hit was that rock ‘n’ roll had never been more than a cartoon view of reality to begin with. Of course, cartoons can still be awesome, too-the best show of the previous decade had been a cartoon, after all. Musically, the overwhelming success of Gorillaz was no less unlikely to those who had some previous vision of what was possible for pop music, highbrow, lowbrow, or somewhere in the middle.

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