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Back to: Archive · 2002 Flippin' marvellous from the NME, 16 March 2002. Review by Andre Paine. This B-sides collection is aimed at the Japanese market, and the sleeve gives the game away. For once, Noodle (the Gorillaz girl whose parents are Manga cartoon characters) is the star. Apart from an X-Box or Julian Casablancas, it's hard to imagine Tokyo youth getting more excited about anything else. A cartoon character and the singer from Blur! What's the Japanese for 'ker-ching'? Just over a year ago, Japan was probably the only place you'd have bet on Gorillaz doing business. In Stereophonics-loving Britain, the joke didn't exactly take off. Both the conceit (Damon Albarn 'advising' his cartoon chums) and the music (politically correct hip-hop meets world music and the old dude from Buena Vista Social Club) were greeted with disdain from many critics. Since then, the world has come round to Albarn's animated sabbatical in a big way, because, as well as those MTV-dominating videos, Gorillaz are an excellent singles band. In 'G-Sides' we get alternative versions of '19-2000' (Soulchild Remix) and 'Clint Eastwood' (Phi Life Cypher Version), the Life and Si Phily rap on the latter transforming it into a booming hip-hop track. And Soulchild's re-working of '19-2000' is even sunnier than the original. Gorillaz's debut single, 'Tomorrow Comes Today' has, however, been criminally ignored. Which just leaves another single, 'Rock The House', and seven B-sides. It doesn't sound promising, but 'Dracula' and 'Ghost Train' should remind Blur fans what they're missing. Gone is the world music vibe which marred 'Gorillaz'; in its place, there's a less considered, seedy yet comic turn of events. 'Dracula' is a lazy paced dub metaphor about excess ("Some of us will never sleep again"); 'Faust' is sparse, cinematic percussion which flowers into a tired, emotional duet between Albarn and a lady called Miho Hator; 'Ghost Train' is a rumbling, electro-driven oddity which samples Human League and climaxes like a 21st century Joy Division. It shouldn't work, but it does - perhaps because, for once, Albarn doesn't sound like he's trying too hard. If you're a dedicated fan you'll own everything on 'G-Sides' already. But everyone else should just give in to Gorillaz. And that includes Graham Coxon. Rating: 8 out of 10. |