REVIEW: Gorillaz's "Cracker Island" (Parlophone)
You know who Gorillaz is, you do not need me to do a formal intro on them. That being said, despite there being a couple pieces of Gorillaz coverage on this blog I’ve never explained my history with the fictional band. As a child I of course knew the hits, but I didn’t really get engrossed in the whole thing until I moved out on my own in 2016. My first home away from my parents was filled with Gorillaz fanatics and I did a fast crash course on all their music including their newest record; Humanz. To my surprise Humanz was horribly received but to me and my friends it was top tier, in fact, it made my top ten albums of that year.
That being said I’m always excited for a new effort, however on Cracker Island Damon Albarn sort of coasts through an entire album. Like, okay, it’s Gorillaz and I don’t think they’re capable of releasing a record of all misses. The title track is an instant Gorillaz classic and in spite of the fact that the record doesn’t feel very substantial there is something to be said about the subtlety of it all, while The Fall and The Now Now may not be my favorite among the catalog there is some magic to the solo feel of them and this one captures a similar effect.
I also feel like in spite of the strength of the title track and some highlights like “Oil,” there was something bothering me about the record that I couldn’t place until I started taking notes; these features are criminally underutilized. Thundercat and Stevie Nicks are reduced to a backing vocal role and I can just barely make Beck out on the closer. However, when we do use everything to our advantage we strike “New Gold.” On this one Albarn makes heavy use of everyone involved while not sacrificing his own vision; something that made me fall in love with the band in the first place. Even on “Tormenta,” while not a huge highlight for me, he manages to create a Bad Bunny song that remains a Gorillaz song as well. Even when solo he proves he can still shine with songs like “Skinny Ape” as well. That and while I think songs like “Baby Queen” are strong while I have the record on I couldn’t sing you a note from it while it’s off and I’ve listened to the record about six times now. I feel like a Gorillaz album should have a much larger impact on me.
Then, as is tradition, all of my criticism gets turned on its head on the deluxe bonus tracks. I feel like since I’ve started listening to them Gorillaz always delivers my favorite songs on the non-standard version of the record and Cracker Island is no exception. On “Controllah” Albarn shows off just how much of a prodigy he can be and brings on a feature that matches his energy. On “Captain Chicken” he continues to confuse by writing an incredible hip hop song with classic Gorillaz collaborator Del the Funky Homosapian that flows perfectly from the final track of the original album, which honestly hurts me more. Because if the immersion isn’t broken that far in and the deluxe ends on two, albeit really strong, remixes then the best version of this album has no closer. Also it feels like a really poor decision to put the De La Soul feature on the deluxe as well as those, to me, are always the Gorillaz tracks to look forward to.
Overall, I don’t think Cracker Island is a bad or even mediocre album in spite of my many problems with it as a whole. When I put these songs on a playlist, and they come on I’ll still be happy, but I wish that we had brought the energy of the deluxe edition to the entire album and not just around half of the overall songs released.
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