In a stunning display of virtual musicianship that left actual humans weeping with joy and confusion, Gorillaz – that motley crew of animated reprobates – drew a global crowd to their stadium spectacular. Yes, the British music industry, that battered old trust fund of pop, has been hailed once again as a cultural powerhouse. Because nothing says ‘cultural powerhouse’ like a bunch of pixels and a man in a blue wig singing about plastic beaches.
Let us examine this phenomenon. Four cartoon characters, fronted by a man who looks like he’s been pulled through a hedge backwards, have filled stadiums from Wembley to Tokyo. The British music industry, meanwhile, is patting itself on the back with a self-congratulatory thwack loud enough to drown out the sound of declining vinyl sales. The news is that a band of fictional reprobates, whose lead singer is literally a ghost, have sold out shows faster than a politician can break a promise. This is the state of our cultural exports: we’ve outsourced our entertainment to cartoons because flesh and blood have become too sweaty.
The show in question was a technicolor feast for the senses, a barrage of strobes and synthesized noise that made your correspondent’s gin and tonic vibrate in sympathy. Murdoc, the bassist with more sins than a Sunday sermon, leered from the screens. 2D, that lanky catastrophe with the voice of an angel trapped in a broken radiogram, warbled about feelings. And the crowd, a sea of flesh and fake fur, sang along to every word. It was magnificent, it was absurd, it was quintessentially British. We have taken the concept of ‘artistic credibility’ and distilled it into a bankable cartoon empire.
The British music industry is now clambering onto a pedestal made of streaming royalties and goodwill, declaring itself a global force. But let us not forget the graveyard of forgotten bands, the pubescent wailers who were promised fame and got a hundred quid and a scarred liver. Gorillaz is the exception that proves the rule: you don’t have to be real to be a success. You just need a good PR team and a willingness to let a madman named Damon do the talking.
So raise a glass to the lads of plastic, the boys of boundless pixels. They have done what no human band could: survive the apathy of the modern ear. And if that makes Britain a cultural powerhouse, then pass me another gin. Because this world is a fever dream, and I am merely its scribe.
