2017-04-11
15 分钟You're listening to Song Exploder,
where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.
I'm Rishikesh Hirway.
Gorillaz is the creation of musician Damon Albarn and comic book artist Jamie Hewlett.
They're a virtual band made up of four animated characters.
The songs are written by Damon Albarn and a roster of collaborators.
Since their first album was released in 2001, Gorillaz have sold over 16 million records worldwide.
In this episode, Damon breaks down the song Andromeda from the 2017 Gorillaz album Humans.
It's a dance song, but also an elegy to people in his life who he's lost,
like legendary soul singer Bobby Womack, a former Gorillaz collaborator.
Andromeda features guest vocals by the rapper and singer Drom,
whose own hit single Broccoli went quadruple platinum in 2016.
Coming up later, Drom tells the story of how he got involved with this track.
But first, Damon Albarn.
It's Gorillaz on Song Exploder.
I'm Damon Albarn.
This originated from a conversation between myself and Twilight Tone,
the guy who co-produced the record.
We were talking about two of the greatest 80s pop songs and we decided that Billie Jean by Michael Jackson and I Can't Go For That by Hall & Oates were two of our favourite tunes in their tempo and their kind of pop sensibilities.
And how could we somehow alchemically channel the greatness of those into our own music?