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87. Gorillaz – Clint Eastwood

Some things just look like shit on paper. One glance at them and you say “huh, not gonna happen” and just avoid the potential train wreck altogether. And that’s exactly what a song created by a washed up Britpop singer, a raspy underground MC, a sci-fi and electronics hip-hop producer, and an ANIMATOR looks like on paper. Train wreck. But just like they say (no one says this) don’t judge an Animal Collective album by the optical illusion printed on the front. And what Damon Albarn, Del the Funkee Homosapian, Dan “The Automator” Nakamura, and Jamie Hewlett did on 2001’s “Clint Eastwood” is anything but the jumbled mess of influences it seems to be on paper. It’s the best eerie hip-pop electronic “Thriller” jam ever. Also, it’s the only eerie hip-pop electronic “Thriller” jam ever.

With horror-show strings, the fakest harmonica noise ever committed to plastic, and the dirtiest piano groove since Dr. Dre dropped the G-funk act, Gorillaz lay down a beat weirder and more head-bob inducing than anything in the pop landscape. And this is pop, don’t get me wrong. There is dub, and hip-hop, and indie, and edm, and a host of other things mixed in there, but this is primarily pop. And just like all the pop out there, this song has stars.

The first is Damon Albarn. Singing the creepy funhouse refrain that hits harder than any sample Kanye could dig up from the ‘70s, Albarn (as cartoon character 2D) carries the song and, in fact, the entire Gorillaz album with his alternately deeply emotional and oddly detached vocals. This is the same voice from Blur, but it’s not the same singer.

The other star is obviously Del. When he growls into the song like the titular baboon at :40, this shit is on. With clean recording and exceptionally clear diction, Del gets the dirt in his rhyme from his own thick voice, and rolls through the song with gravitas and a snarl that are frankly necessary to keep up the Dark Tower sci-fi-Wild-West theme of the song. It’s a mash up in every way possible, and on paper, maybe it does look like shit. But coming out of the speakers? It’s pure pop music at it’s finest.