El Mañana

Tomorrow

El Mañana by Gorillaz

"If you've never watched a Gorillaz music video, you're in for an audio-visual treat. I suggest you go to their official website because all the versions on YouTube are crappy. Plus if you get really into them, you can look at their other work. It's stunning and trippy at the same time. Enjoy!"

I can't embed the video from their website, so I used a YouTube video for listening purposes. If you want to watch it, click the hyperlink in the description above. It's worth a view.

The music video is actually so beautiful that it takes precedence, for me, over the music. It's as if the track was created to be the soundtrack to the video rather than the other way around, which is how music videos are typically created. That's not true but that's what it feels like.

To understand what's going on, we need to take a step back.

Gorillaz is a virtual band. It is made up of four animated, fictional characters: 2D (lead vocals, keyboard), Murdoc Niccals (bass guitar, vocals), Noodle (guitar, keyboard, and backing vocals) and Russel Hobbs (drums and percussion) (x).

I left the hyperlinks on each band member so you can do some more research if you really want to know more about these guys.

This isn't the first time I've talked about virtual bands. Remember this? But at the time, I thought Hatsune Miku was unique. I didn't realize virtual bands are, like, a thing.

According to Wikipedia, "a virtual band is any group whose members are not corporeal musicians." The article says that Gorillaz popularized the term in 2000, but it cites none other than Alvin and the Chipmunks as the originators of the "virtual band" as a concept.

They do everything non-virtual bands do, including our and give live performances.

Back to the video, I'm still not sure I understand what's going on, but at least it's pretty. Spoiler alert: Noodle dies. That's something you don't see in music videos with non-virtual bands.

Overview:

Genre:
Trip Hop

Favorite Lyrics:
Maybe in time,
you'll want to be mine.

Verdict:
confused