Early Life

Gorillaz began with a very human irritation. Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett were sharing a flat in London in the late 1990s, watching MTV and finding the parade of pop imagery increasingly hollow. Albarn had already lived through Britpop from the inside as the singer and principal songwriter of Blur. Hewlett had made his name with Tank Girl, the punkish comic-book creation he co-created with Alan Martin. Together they imagined a group that could send up manufactured celebrity while also becoming a real musical force. The result was not a parody band in the disposable sense, but a working fiction with songs good enough to outlive the joke. The original animated line-up introduced singer 2-D, bassist Murdoc Niccals, drummer Russel Hobbs and guitarist Noodle. Their biographies were deliberately absurd, but the music was handled with unusual seriousness. Hip-hop, dub, punk, art pop, electronic music, reggae, soul and film-score atmosphere were not treated as decorations; they were built into the identity of the group. In that sense, Gorillaz arrived at exactly the right moment. The music industry was still organized around albums and television, but the audience was moving toward online worlds. Gorillaz gave fans characters to follow, videos to decode and a sound that refused to stay inside one genre.

Family

Parents

• Damon Albarn, musician, songwriter and co-creator of Gorillaz
• Jamie Hewlett, artist, designer and co-creator of Gorillaz

Siblings

• Blur, Damon Albarn’s band
• Tank Girl, Jamie Hewlett’s best-known comic-book creation before Gorillaz
• The Good, the Bad & the Queen, another Damon Albarn-led project

Career

The first Gorillaz album arrived in 2001 with the stealth of a prank and the confidence of a manifesto. Clint Eastwood was the breakthrough: a woozy melodica line, Albarn’s detached vocal, Del the Funky Homosapien rapping as a ghost in the machine, and a video that made the band feel less like a novelty than a fully formed universe. The album Gorillaz sold in huge numbers and made the group international, but its more important achievement was conceptual. It proved that animated characters could carry a serious pop project without making the music feel secondary. Demon Days, released in 2005, turned Gorillaz from phenomenon into institution. Produced with Danger Mouse, it was darker, sharper and more cinematic than the debut. Feel Good Inc. became the signature song: a pop single about commercial emptiness that was itself irresistible pop. The Grammy win for the track mattered because it confirmed that Gorillaz were not being rewarded merely for innovation in presentation. The record industry was recognizing the songs. Plastic Beach in 2010 expanded the canvas again. It imagined a floating island of consumer waste and brought together guests including Snoop Dogg, Bobby Womack, Mos Def, Lou Reed, Gruff Rhys and Mark E. Smith. At a time when many albums were shrinking toward playlists, Gorillaz made a record that behaved like a place. It was ambitious, sometimes strange, and central to the group’s reputation as a project that could gather unlikely voices into one coherent atmosphere. The Fall, recorded largely on an iPad during a North American tour, followed quickly and showed another side of the idea: Gorillaz could be large-scale and handmade, blockbuster and sketchbook. After a pause, Humanz returned in 2017 with a crowded, anxious party record built around a world in political and emotional disarray. The Now Now in 2018 pulled the focus back toward Albarn’s melancholy pop instincts, while Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez in 2020 treated collaboration as an episodic format, releasing tracks like dispatches from a studio that could connect Robert Smith, Beck, St. Vincent, Elton John, 6LACK, Peter Hook and others. Cracker Island in 2023 brought another polished, guest-rich phase, with Bad Bunny, Stevie Nicks, Thundercat, Tame Impala and Bootie Brown among its collaborators. Through all of this, the visual world remained essential. Hewlett’s designs evolved with the music: rougher in the early days, sleeker in later phases, but always slightly dangerous. The characters aged, disappeared, returned and acquired new backstories. Live, the project solved its central contradiction by allowing the real musicians and the animated mythology to coexist. Early performances leaned on screens and silhouettes; later tours became full-scale concerts with Albarn visible at the center, surrounded by a rotating cast of singers and players. That evolution is part of why the current success of The Mountain feels significant. Gorillaz are no longer being measured against the novelty of their format. They are being measured against their own unusually restless history.

Television

• G-Bitez (2001-2002) — Themselves
• MTV Cribs (2001) — Themselves
• MTV Europe Music Awards (2005) — Performers
• 48th Annual Grammy Awards (2006) — Performers
• Later… with Jools Holland (2010) — Performers
• The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (2017) — Performers
• Song Machine Live (2020) — Performers

Filmography

• Phase One: Celebrity Take Down (2002) — Themselves
• Phase Two: Slowboat to Hades (2006) — Themselves
• Bananaz (2008) — Documentary subjects
• Gorillaz: Reject False Icons (2019) — Documentary subjects
• Song Machine Live From Kong (2020) — Performers

Awards & Honors

• 2001 — Mercury Prize (Album of the Year) — Shortlisted; withdrawn at the band’s request
• 2002 — Grammy Awards (Best Short Form Music Video) — Nominated
• 2006 — Grammy Awards (Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals) — Won
• 2006 — Grammy Awards (Record of the Year) — Nominated
• 2006 — Grammy Awards (Best Short Form Music Video) — Nominated
• 2011 — Grammy Awards (Best Alternative Music Album) — Nominated
• 2011 — Grammy Awards (Best Short Form Music Video) — Nominated
• 2018 — BRIT Awards (British Group) — Won
• 2018 — Grammy Awards (Best Alternative Music Album) — Nominated
• 2022 — Grammy Awards (Best Alternative Music Album) — Nominated
• 2024 — Grammy Awards (Best Alternative Music Album) — Nominated

Business Ventures

• Gorillaz operate as a multimedia recording and visual-entertainment property, with music, animation, touring, merchandise, limited-edition releases and character-led storytelling functioning together.
• The project has released music through major labels including Parlophone and Warner Records, depending on territory and era.
• Gorillaz have collaborated on collectible figures and art objects with companies including Kidrobot and Superplastic.
• The band has partnered with fashion and lifestyle brands, including Converse and Casio G-Shock, for limited campaigns tied to the Gorillaz visual identity.
• The fictional Kong Studios has served as an important branding device, giving the group a recognizable imaginary headquarters across videos, websites and promotional material.

Philanthropy

• Gorillaz contributed Hong Kong to War Child’s 2005 charity album Help!: A Day in the Life, a project created to raise money for children affected by conflict.
• The Plastic Beach era brought environmental imagery and consumer-waste anxiety into the center of a major pop campaign, using the band’s platform to turn ecological decay into part of the visual and musical conversation.

Current Projects

• The Mountain, the latest Gorillaz album, has returned the group to No. 1 and is the reason for this week’s renewed spotlight.
• Ongoing Gorillaz activity continues to combine new music, animation, visual design, streaming-era storytelling and live performance.
• The group’s catalog remains unusually active online, with major singles and music videos continuing to attract billion-stream audiences.

Interesting Facts

• Gorillaz were partly conceived while Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett were watching MTV and reacting against what they saw as empty pop presentation.
• The band name originally appeared as Gorillaz rather than The Gorillaz, helping the project feel more like a brand, a gang and a cartoon universe at once.
• 2-D, Murdoc, Noodle and Russel are fictional, but the music has always used real musicians, producers and collaborators.
• Clint Eastwood does not feature the actor Clint Eastwood; the title is widely associated with the song’s melodica line, which echoes the atmosphere of spaghetti western music.
• Del the Funky Homosapien’s voice on Clint Eastwood is framed in the band’s mythology as a spirit possessing drummer Russel Hobbs.
• The debut album was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, but the band asked to be withdrawn, a very Gorillaz move for a project suspicious of traditional prestige.
• Demon Days was produced with Danger Mouse, whose approach helped sharpen the album’s cinematic darkness.
• Feel Good Inc. won a Grammy in a category that emphasized collaboration, which is fitting for a band built on unlikely combinations.
• Plastic Beach’s guest list included both rap and rock figures, but also soul legend Bobby Womack and Lou Reed, making it one of the decade’s more unexpected pop assemblies.
• The Fall was recorded largely on an iPad while Damon Albarn was touring in North America.
• Gorillaz performances gradually shifted from hiding the human musicians behind the concept to openly presenting Albarn and the live band alongside the animated world.
• Jamie Hewlett’s artwork has changed with each phase, allowing the characters to age and mutate rather than remain frozen in early-2000s design.
• The Song Machine project anticipated the way modern pop audiences consume music in episodes, clips and collaborations rather than only through traditional album campaigns.
• Gorillaz have repeatedly used fictional addresses, studios and backstories as promotional tools, turning album marketing into narrative world-building.
• The band has collaborated with artists from several generations, from Ibrahim Ferrer and Bobby Womack to Bad Bunny and Billie Eilish-era streaming audiences, without becoming a nostalgia act.

Why ShowBiz Selected This Entertainer

Gorillaz are featured this week because The Mountain has put the band back at No. 1, a striking achievement for a project that began more than two decades ago as a cartoon critique of pop fame. The new success lands differently because Gorillaz have already survived several shifts that ended many early-2000s acts: the decline of music television, the collapse of the CD era, the rise of streaming, the fragmentation of genre and the conversion of artists into always-on multimedia brands. Gorillaz anticipated much of that world. Their billion-stream singles and videos are not accidental late-career bonuses; they are the natural outcome of a band built from the start for sound and image to travel together. The Mountain is therefore not just another album cycle. It is evidence that Albarn and Hewlett’s experiment still has room to move, still attracts new listeners and still makes the industry look a little more old-fashioned than Gorillaz do.

Watch Next

• Clint Eastwood music video
• Feel Good Inc. music video
• Demon Days Live
• Plastic Beach album visuals
• Bananaz
• Gorillaz: Reject False Icons
• Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez
• Cracker Island music videos
• The Mountain