Review by Jason Norwood
Rating: ***
Standout track: Welcome To The World Of The Plastic Beach
You know, every now and again I get "Clint Eastwood" in my head. The concept was solid--a virtual, cartoon world band that straddled hip hop, electronica....hell, just about any genre you could think of. Fast forward past their first two successful albums to arrive at the Plastic Beach. There are a few solid tracks here, and the album is listenable, but one key thing is missing--the cohesiveness of their earlier material. Although the Gorillaz have always maintained a revolving-door membership, each album had a solid lineup which made their virtual universe believable. Not so with "Plastic Beach"--Gorillaz seems to have been reduced to Albarn's music concept, the cartoon characters, and a stream of guests from Snoop Dogg to Lou Reed. If you can get past this, there's some excellent stuff on this album. Unfortunately, it slides just a little too far into sounding like a hip-hop compilation than an album.