15 Years of Plastic Beach by Gorillaz

For almost as long as Gorillaz have existed, a deep concern for the happenings of the world surrounding the band at any particular moment in time seems to have been one of the primary motivations to record music under the name. Born from a collaboration of Tank Girl artist Jamie Hewlett and Blur frontman Damon Albarn, the colourful caricatures that define the virtual band’s videos, the fantastical animated videos and the famously incomprehensible lore regarding the project has spurred a die-hard love that many bands could only dream of, without any of its supposed members ever stepping foot on a stage. The Mic's Josh Holmes reflects on the impact and importance of Gorillaz's seminal 2010 album, Plastic Beach, 15 years after its debut.

On the third record to be released under the moniker Gorillaz, it’s very easy to forget about that aspect of the band entirely. For almost exactly an hour, Albarn - and a ridiculously diverse set of collaborators - come together to create a modern classic electropop album, one so timeless that I genuinely keep forgetting it’s somehow been out for fifteen years as of earlier this year. Now, with 2026’s The Mountain already being pitched as a spiritual successor to this record in particular, there’s no better time to come back and examine just what makes this album tick.

The most remarkable part about it all is that on the surface, there is precisely zero way that Plastic Beach should be even the slightest bit cohesive. The beauty of Gorillaz as a project is providing a blank slate where pairings as wild as Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals alongside hip hop trio De La Soul can thrive, and there’s really few other projects where such a collaboration could make any sort of sense.

That being said though, the first couple of tracks seem to hold the album’s cards rather close to its chest in terms of the diversity of the collaborations. The lush Orchestral Intro gives way into some iconic, laid-back West Coast hip-hop perfection from Snoop Dogg, who embodies this fantastical narrator style character as he introduces listeners to the titular 'plastic beach'. An obvious metaphor for the environmental issues Albarn and co. were targeting with the record, Plastic Beach in the Gorillaz canon refers to an island formed of pure plastic waste and landfill, floating in the ocean and acting as the gathering point for all these musicians to come and record together.

With such a grim narrative device being used as the centre of the album, it’s almost funny hearing Dogg hijacking Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach to try and distract from the truly awful state of the environment in the modern day. It’s perfectly in character with this entertaining, guiding & rather uninterested role he’s playing into, which itself feels like an excellent critique of the way environmental issues are hand-waved away by those who aren’t affected first hand.

White Flag is a track that has found something of a new life as of late, with its showcasing of classical Arabic styles via the National Orchestra for Arabic Music clearly taking on new meaning in the wake of the continual crisis in Palestine - seen in the band holding the song until last in their recent full album performance of Plastic Beach earlier this year, alongside their performance at the Together for Palestine show not long after. It’s almost a shame such a gorgeous section of a musical style that goes so overlooked in Western popular music is cut so short, but British rappers Bashy and Kano really do push the track forward with an engrossing, boastful style of delivery that is just perfectly supplemented by the return of the orchestra in the song’s dying minute.

The song’s first solo moment, Rhinestone Eyes, initially starts out as something of a pace-breaker, with only a basic drum loop and gentle acoustic plucks to keep you tuned into Damon’s defeated vocals. As soon as the acoustic drum track and the jagged synth work in the chorus takes hold though, there’s no escaping the whirlpool of pop perfection that is crafted for the remaining two minutes - and by the time the backing vocals kick in with the ever memorable “that’s electric!” segment, you’re at the mercy of whenever Damon deems the song ready to end. Such an increase in energy acts as the perfect lead-in to the driving Stylo, where Mos Def’s signature flow is somewhat stepped on by enrapturing cries of late soul legend Bobby Womack, whose confident vocal at the age of 66 still somehow feels as if he hadn’t aged a day. It feels like Womack claims the song as his own as he delivers his lines, and he is impossible to ignore or cast aside.

Rolling back round to the wild collaboration of De La Soul and Gruff Rhys I mentioned earlier, and the way both artists are integrated together on Superfast Jellyfish feels rather like they play off their differences in the best way possible. The rap trio effortlessly take the verses with a scathing satire of processed foods (that doubles as an attack on the music industry attempting to force experimental artists down defined routes), before the Super Furry Animal himself provides a lush duet alongside Albarn in the chorus to contrast.

The way the track then goes onto transition into Empire Ants is to this day one of my favourite transitions on any album, full stop, as the song’s main synthesiser slowly dies and relents as the space is perfectly filled by acoustic guitar chords. This is followed by two of the most relaxing, meditative moments to ever grace a pop record, a melancholic piano and swathes of reverb bringing this ambient, dreamy inspired soundscape atop which Albarn’s voice absolutely sails. The way such a soundscape gives way to an electropop marvel (featuring the unmistakable delivery of Little Dragon’s Yukimi Nagano) is something I’ve been trying to get my head around properly for the entire time I’ve spent listening to this record, but the truth is that I don’t think I will ever understand it. It is a genius moment that never fails to leave my jaw on the floor, and my only gripe with it is that both of these sections could really have justified being full songs in their own right.

The death of Empire Ants then gives way to the cryptic, repetitive, electro-influenced synthesiser battlefield of an instrumental that is Glitter Freeze, with ad-libs and manic laughter courtesy of The Fall’s Mark E. Smith lending the visual of some mad sailor. It in turn sets up nicely for Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground to contribute to Some Kind of Nature, a pop song so catchy that I struggle to erase its chorus from memory for days at a time after every instance of hearing it. Reed’s vocals work despite feeling very much like they shouldn’t - he sounds aloof, completely out of sync with Albarn, but the result somehow ends up as the perfect contrast that cements the song as a triumph.

There’s no better song to call a ‘triumph’ on this album, though, than what comes next. On Melancholy Hill is not just my single favourite track on this record, but it may just be one of my favourite songs of all time. It’s such a simple song at its heart, with four chords that lend so well to acoustic playing it’s no wonder Albarn has performed the song in such a manner so many times. Where the track really shines is in its lush production, the heart-breaking lyrics detailing a crushingly human narrative of loving someone despite their flaws, and a lead melody so innocent it can bring joy to the coldest of hearts. I probably ought to stop talking about this one, because realistically I’m so biased I can’t provide any sort of decent commentary without just showering the track in praise.

The following track, Broken, is just as heart-wrenching - another solo moment, this time powered purely by synthesisers and drum loops. It still ends up maintaining something of an understated beauty so rich you can’t help but fall head over heels with it, which is really a mistake when you consider how simple yet crushing the lyrics are. It swiftly crumbles away as Mos Def returns to finally take his turn in the spotlight with the five minute Sweepstakes - many fans have voiced their displeasure with this track due to its repetitive nature, but being honest Mos Def’s larger than life, boardwalk proprietor character he plays works so well when juxtaposed with the obvious lyrical commentary on gambling addiction and how it affects those on the bread line. The contributions from the Brass Ensemble are just the cherry on top, injecting a bombastic energy that slowly begins to reveal itself, coalescing in what is no doubt one of Plastic Beach’s most satisfying moments, as the live drumming and trumpets make themselves known just around the halfway mark.

This is followed by the title track, which acts as something of a bait-and-switch following an epic, creeping guitar intro courtesy of Clash member Mick Jones. That gives way so remarkably to a playful, synth-driven instrumental as fellow Clash player Paul Simonon delivers an addicting bassline in the chorus. This is possibly the most overt case of environmentalist themes punching through across the album, with lyrics telling of a literal landfill of old synthesisers washing up on this polluted mess of an island working brilliantly with the pitch-shifted vocals to create this dystopian, post-apocalyptic feeling of dread amidst what might happen if humans continue polluting at our current rate.

Such themes are temporarily put on the back burner again for the second Yukimi Nagano feature, To Binge, in what is to me by far the album’s most emotionally draining moment. A duet between Nagano and Albarn, the song’s pretty, carefree indie pop instrumental hides devastating lyrics detailing a relationship torn apart by substance abuse. I haven’t highlighted particular lyrics on this album all that much through this review, but the fourth verse where Albarn wonders “You’re by my side, but are you still with me?” before rolling back around into heart pounding, simple declarations of love feels so human, so broken that to not mention it would be doing a disservice.

After having your heart torn to pieces, Womack’s return on Cloud of Unknowing serves to shred said pieces into little bits and pieces. At the time, Womack’s Alzheimer’s (that would eventually lead to the death of the soul legend) was still not diagnosed, so the lyrics detailing an almost spiritual sense of uncertainty and forgetting ring with a newfound emotional impact that is almost dumbfounding. The return of the orchestral contributions from Sinfonia ViVa towards the end of the song perfectly softens up listeners as Womack’s hums disappear into nothingness, all building to some epic finale…

…but such an epic finale never comes. Plastic Beach, unlike predecessor Demon Days which ended with a wondrous one-two punch of optimism, leaves listeners with words of warning. I could never find myself enjoying Pirate Jet for years upon first falling in love with Plastic Beach primarily because I thought it was such an anti-climax, a steadily pounding synth driven vision of an apocalyptic, polluted future. It’s very obvious now that was precisely the point, and I’ve begun to fall in love with it.

For as colourful, vivid, and spectacular as Plastic Beach continues to be, fifteen years after it originally released, something about the moodiness of Pirate Jet helps to remind us of the ever-relevant issue of keeping our planet clean that is, at its heart, what the album is all about. Plastic Beach reminds us not just to love those around us, to love the beautiful variety in music, and to celebrate our own differences - it reminds us to love the Earth itself, or to alternatively wake ourselves up to the grim future we blindly trundle towards if we fail to do so.

Josh Holmes

Edited by Max Durno

All photos and videos are courtesy of Gorillaz