Gorillaz biography

The band's next single, 2001's Clint Eastwood, launched our musical monkeys into the global spotlight - Albarn's laconic vocals loped over an insistent, hip-hop beat and provided them with a Top 10 hit in the UK and an unlikely hit in the US. Later that year the band released their eponymously titled debut album. Chock-full of brisk, punky, cartoon hip hop, hazy dub and folk-tinged playfullness the album would go on to sell 4m copies around the world. Single 19-2000 also became a hit in the US, featuring in various commercials. Each single naturally, was accompanied by a suitably humorous cartoon themed video. A half-hour TV mockumentary entitled Charts Of Darkness also helped to feed the virtual myth. In it, Channel 4 news presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy attempted to track down Albarn and Hewlett after they were placed in an insane asylum.

The end of 2001 saw a collaboration between the Gorillaz and Eminem's rap proteges D12 and Terry Hall on 911, a song about the 9/11 attacks on America. A compilation of the band's B-sides, wackily entitled G-Sides, was released in 2002. That year also saw the band's first widescale TV performance at the 2002 Brit Awards, am ambitious stint which featured the band in 3D animation weaving in and out of eachother on four large screens. Later that year, Laika Come Home, a dub remix album, was released containing most of the Gorillaz tracks, reworked by Spacemonkeyz. The ensuing few years found the band on hiatus. Their website was closed and later relaunched and plans for a film, to be directed by Jamie Hewlett, were eventually shelved.

There followed a long wait for the band's follow-up album and delays in the release date, coupled with an eagerly awaited Coldplay album (X&Y), began to affect EMI's share price. Demon Days eventually arrived in June 2005. In the interim period Albarn had replaced Gorillaz's other main musical player, Dan Nakamura with Brian 'Danger Mouse' Burton, the man responsible for illegally splicing Jay Z's raps from his Black Album with The Beatles' music from The White Album on bootleg CD The Grey Album.

It was Danger Mouse's flourishes which helped the album to garner critical and commercial success - the children's choir on Dirty Harry for instance. And Happy Monday's former frontman Shaun Ryder's befuddled but charismatic rapping on hit single Dare. Elsewhere UK rapper Roots Manuva guest rapped on All Alone. Despite the playful and addictive urban beats, the album's central theme was of an impending, post 9/11 apocalypse, addressing the easy access to guns on Kids With Guns and the environment on O Green World. Even celebrated Hollywood psycho Dennis Hopper cropped up for an eco-rap on Only Fire Coming Out Of A Monkey's Brain. Bundled in with blistering dance tracks like Feel Good Inc, Albarn demonstrated that he still had a finger on the pulse of urban youth, not bad for a middle class, moneyed rock star.. The album debuted at No.1 on the UK charts, quickly securing triple platinum status with over 1m sales making it the fifth best selling album of 2005. The album has already racked up over 6m copies worldwide. The band are preparing to go on a hologram world tour in 2007 but Albarn has recently expressed doubts over a third album. "I'm not sure we could do anything better than Demon Days," he says. Don't discount him sending out a virtual replacement to do the tour instead...