gorillaz – plastic beach (2010)

Plastic Beach is about capability: what can be held in the hands and what can only ever be reasoned with in the abstract. While nature can be held in the hands, it has been undermined as a conceptual anchor that prevents a certain idea of capitalist progress. Streams of rubbish have lined our shores since. Echoing the overwhelming splashes of colour in marketed products, the record exuberates with synths and hooks. It’s a breathtakingly good contrast: Plastic Beach’s musical beauty is cut with the ugliness of disposability and loneliness that is littered throughout. Gorillaz examined what we consign to ‘trash’ to enlighten what we ought to cling onto.   

30/30

A favourite: ‘Empire Ants’ feat. Little Dragon