A Review of 'Cracker Island' by Gorillaz

One of my favorite albums of this year so far with an unfortunate rollout

After months of waiting we finally got the new album by the fictional British band Gorillaz. Cracker Island has been released (I still think it should’ve been called The Last Cult or The Static Channel 😒.) I know I’m like a month late with reviewing it but I wanted to start off this blog with a few tech related topics and then go a bit into some media ones so here’s the first music related post. I’ve deiced to first write down a few quick thoughts about each song on the album and then talk a bit about it as a whole.

- Cracker Island: At first I though this track was a bit too loud for my taste but it has grown on me since (it was the first single from the album released). Now I think it’s pretty good though I would’ve liked an intro placed before it on the album like on Demon Days or Plastic Beach.

- Oil (feat. Stevie Nicks): New song no. 1. It's a really beautiful song with some nice lyrics but I would've preferred it to be a little later in the album. Still good though.

- The Tired Influencer: New song no. 2 and worst track on the album in my opinion. Nothing notable stand out from it. The lyrics are generic and the Siri response sounds in the background feel kinda corny 💀.

- New Gold (feat. Bootie Brown and Tame Impala): Easily the best song on the album. Both of the guests’ vocals are great, plus it's the only song with a rap bit on this album (kinda expected more from Gorillaz). And what else can I say, it's a bop.

- Baby Queen: Nice track to calm down after the previous one. Not much else to say about it, it’s fine.

- Tarantula: New song no. 3. I quite like it. It has a really catchy instrumental which I like. I’ll have to listen to it more.

- Tormenta (feat. Bad Bunny): New song no. 4. I was really excited to see how this song would turn out since it's the first Gorillaz song featuring Spanish vocals, I think. And yeah, it's pretty good. Not my favorite on the album but it lived up to my expectations.

- Skinny Ape: One of the less interesting songs on the album. I don't know why but I didn't like this song since it was released. Maybe it's partly because of Damon repeating “Skinny Ape" which I find annoying.

- Possession Island (feat. Beck): Really great closing track. I really enjoyed all the more soothing bits on the album and this one is no exception.

Deluxe tracks:

- Captain Chicken (feat. Del The Funky Homosapien) is a silly little track that reminds me a lot of Superfast Jellyfish from Plastic Beach.

- Controllah (feat. MC Bin Laden) is quite good. The guest artist raps in Portuguese on this track (thought it was Spanish at first but I checked it) and more linguistic variety is always welcome.

- Crocodillaz (feat. De La Soul and Dawn Penn) actually ranks next to the best tracks on the album like New Gold in my opinion. It has a nice fun beat and De La Soul is great since he’s a frequent guest on Gorillaz tracks.

- There’s also a piano cover of Silent Running and a New Gold remix which are both nice additions.

Some general thoughts

The sound

This album continues the modern, poppy sound of Song Machine or some tracks on The Now Now. Of course there are different opinion wether this is good or not but I don’t mind it. Gorillaz as a band are evolving and changing with the times. In the 2000’s and 2010’s their sound had more rap parts and samples because that’s what the sound of those times was. Now they’re changing a bit but that’s a natural part of their progression.

Though I’m kinda disoriented by the deluxe tracks. They all feature rap vocals and call to the older sound of Gorillaz. Maybe the label didn’t really want those tracks on the album and that’s why they kept them only to the deluxe version but I don’t know the internal situation so I can’t judge. A track like Crocodillaz could fit on the main album though.

The album rollout

What impacted my (and many other people’s) reception of the album was definitely the way it’s been released. The album’s first single, Cracker Island, was released on June 22nd 2022. We then had to wait until November 19th for the second one (New Gold) and after that, when we thought the album was going to be released shortly, we got the announcement that it’s not coming out until February 24th next year. That situation led to some of the songs being leaked early and then released officialy. By the time the album released we already heard half of all of the songs (not counting the deluxe version.) I get that this strategy of releasing the songs one by one until the album’s release makes sense from a business standpoint because it stretches the hype around the album but when that sort of thing makes the final result less interesting and exciting I think there’s a problem. I hope Gorillaz see the outcome it had and with they’re next project they step back a bit. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with releasing a few of the song as singles before the release of an album but it went too far this time in my opinion.

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The artwork featured in the cover belongs to the band Gorillaz.