Cracker Island

Cracker Island is the eighth album of indie band Gorillaz. I listened to four of their earlier albums frequently and they were 3.5 (good) to 4 (great) star albums. This one is not, it deserves hardly a 3 stars. The earlier albums of Gorillaz are not the best in songwriting or performance in rock/pop history, but they are great because of innovation, energy and experiments. This is a lame and boring collection of songs. The title track is not a bad song, but what follows sounds uninspired and uninteresting. A big disappointment for a band that has made great music.

Not so much an album (as the band said themselves), more so a collection of neat collabs and other bits/bobs. Feels choppy and untethered as a result, especially by the band's strong narrative standards. Still, decent indie and awesome joint efforts between Albarn and some heavy hitters make for a fun listen. Perhaps not a necessary listen, but enjoyable at least.

The gorillaz have an amazing ingenuity with music. They have made some historically great albums with new methods that altered music post 2000. Cracker Island has no shortage of electronic alternative beats. The features make this feel like a hodgepodge of cool artists thrown together. Overall it’s a fine album but for the gorillaz it’s a bit lower on their list. 6.5/10

Prefer Gorlliaz earlier stuff to this.

Yes, this one slaps 5

Not my favorite Gorillaz, but still Gorillaz.

The more Gorillaz I hear the more I love them... this was just a perfectly smooth and wonderful listen from beginning to end. The guest artists added a lot to the party - Thundercat's song was funky, Stevie Nicks lended her voice as a backup that perfectly accentuated "Oil", Adeleye Omotayo was new to me - I loved "Silent Running" and that cool groove. The rapping contrasted nicely with Tame Impala on "New Gold". Bad Bunny's "Tormenta" was a joy to hear, and Beck's contribution to "Possession Island" made it all the more haunting. Great great album!

Good stuff. 4 stars.

No big hits from this album. But it does have a lot of awesome collaborations

I've warmed more to this band that I originally took to be mostly about the gimmick of "virtuality". This kind of reminded me of the darker side of 80s new wave, but with a little more quirk and humor (both to its benefit).

Rating: 8/10 Best songs: Cracker island, Silent running, New gold, Tarantula, Tormenta

I can't believe how good this was

Can we talk about that album cover for a second? What's with that? For a project based almost as much on art as it is music, that is such a weird and weakly composed shot to use as an cover. It feels like a random screenshot from a music video that never got made. It needs better direction. In regards to the music, I think the title track punches up with some of Gorillaz best across the years, and it had me so hyped for the album as a whole. Oil as well is strong; I really like the sound of Albarn and Nicks singing together, their voices pair really nicely for me. Skinny Ape is another unexpected hit for me, with a fun progression from down low to banger. But outside of these, the album isn't bad, but it is so dang forgettable. Even a Tame Impala/Gorillaz crossover doesn't work as well as I'd hoped it would. I'd never say this album has a really "bad" moment, but I really wish it was better as a whole.

Island for me

This was very FINE. I never dislike Gorillaz but also they'll never be as good as their first two albums

Sounds like Gorillaz to me!

I am impressed at how they are able to keep coming out with albums that sound nothing like what they’ve done previously, yet still undeniably Gorillaz. There are some really great songs on here, although some of them aren’t very exciting. I don’t understand how you can have so many talented features and use them so poorly. Where the fuck was Stevie Nicks!? I enjoyed listening, but it’s not my favorite from them. 3/5

Pop, synth-pop, electropop, indie-funk. Ni fu ni fa.

Yeah, well, it looks like "virtual bands" can grow old and lose relevance like any other band out there. Because let's face it, Damon Albarn gets old just like the rest of us, and if it's nice that he seems to still have a lot of fun collaborating with all sorts of talents through the Gorillaz project, that doesn't mean each and every recent release from the latter is a stellar job in a purely artistic viewpoint. If you go though their most recent output, the "feel" of the latest Gorillaz LPs indeed feels a little too streamlined -- as if the obvious amount of skills and talents involved was a curse rather than a blessing, making Albarn and co. go a little too fast in the studio. This apparent speed of execution might for instance explain why Gorillaz often forget to sprinkle much needed grains of sand in the machinery of *Cracker Island* to make it sound more "human" instead of standardized. As a result, the record mixes the good, the bad, and the definitely boring. In the first category you have the title-track and opener, -- featuring a Thundercat in fine form -- and also the cinematic "The Tired Influencer", along with the melancholic "Baby Queen", and the terrific and jittery "Skinny Ape", somehow recalling the wonders of days yonder in Gorillaz' discography ("ape!"). Moody string-laden ballad "Possession Island", co-written with Beck, is also a very decent closer, I guess. But in the second and third category, you have "Oil" with Stevie Nicks, which admittedly starts on a high note, but then circles around the same intents without ever finding a way out, clearly wearing out its welcome. The same sort of letdown also happens on "Tarantula", its eccentric tones at the start never developing into something truly engaging. And then you have even far worse than that ... "Tormenta" has the flair to feature Bad Bunny right at the moment the reggaeton star broke out for general audiences, but honestly, the song merely sounds like a reject from *Un Verano Sin Ti* sessions (which is ironic, given that Bad Bunny is definitely NOT good at self-editing in the album format, generally speaking). As for "Silent Running", it is very honestly a borefest -- lazy funk spotify playlist fodder devoid of true stakes. And "New Gold", with Tame Impala and Bootie Brown, is just an insufferable, heavy-handed single seeing everyone involved go on a full automatic mode, without ever considering that the result is devoid of true soul. Kevin Parker simply repeats the same tired vocal hook again and again here, and all it does is making the song sound grating instead of hypnotic. It's quite ironic that Albarn beats Parker at his own game *without him* in the track that follows, "Baby Queen" -- displaying the sort of songwriting that is the essence of the best Tame Impala songs. Thanks for the opportunity to revisit this record, though. Honestly, there were *so many* better albums released in 2023 (probably from forty to fifty of them by my count), that I can't help thinking selecting this particular record is a very weird choice. And that year wasn't even a stellar year for music in my book! But it's still cool that I could have the opportunity to fine-tune my personal assessment if this record. I'm gonna do the same with *The Mountain* now, the album that Gorillaz just released this year, in case another user selects it. In the meantime... 2.5/5 for the purposes of this list dedicated to essential albums, rounded up to 3. 7.5/10 for more general purposes (5 + 2.5) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 87 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 109 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 223 (including this one) ---- Yo, Émile. Je t'ai enfin répondu. Regarde sous... *Demon Days*, de Gorillaz, au-dessus ! 😉

I don't enjoy this album as much as the earlier Gorillaz stuff. Some good songs but the rest are mostly forgettable. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.

Shite but better than their other stuff.

Not great

I think it's time for Damon to move on. This sounds like he's resting on his laurels, inviting other famous people to do a 'Gorillaz collab' and although there's nothing bad in the tracks they lack the bite of earlier songs in earlier albums. Time to move on.