The Ten Worst Gorillaz Songs Ever Released

Obviously, when picking apart a band such as Gorillaz (whose body of work contains far more many great songs than good songs, quite a few more good songs than mediocre songs, and a fair deal more mediocre songs than bad songs), any list with a name like “The Ten Worst Songs They Ever Did,” has to be taken with a grain of salt.

With maybe one or two exceptions, I wouldn’t say that any of these songs actually suck, per se. Just that they fall short of the standards set by everything else that’s available (or at least that they’ve been far outshined by the better tracks).

But, here it is, without further ado, the Ten Worst Gorillaz Songs Ever Released.

Worst Remixes

Alright, I lied. There’s a bit further ado. I decided not to count remixes in my collection of the ten worst songs, but some of them are so awful that they deserve a bit of acknowledgement of their own. Honestly, I don’t hold anything like a bad remix against Damon or anyone directly involved with the project. Under the wrong pair of hands, even the best of songs can be devolved into crap.

DARE (Soulwax Remix) – The bleep-blip background of this song might best be described as a cannon full of electronic knives that wiggle their way slowly into your ears.

19/2000 (Wiseguys House of Wisdom Remix) – Three straight minutes of an identical beat, a single vocal sample, and a random line from some American 60s movie thrown in to “season.” Now there’s an original idea! Somewhere out there, an eastern European housecat with a pair of gayviators is hunched over an iMac cutting up a track that’s going to end up sounding identical to this remix. In fact, I think there’s some vast conspiracy of club mixers who secretly repackage the same song over and over again under different names in hope that nobody will notice. Unfortunately, I did.

Clint Eastwood (Ed Case Refix) – In a way, this remix sucks a little bit less for being somewhat historically significant. But don’t expect me to give it the pass on that alone. Take a great chorus, speed it up into double time, and re-record the instrumental on a twenty dollar Casio keyboard. Besides some inspired skanking from Sweetie Irie, this song makes me want to vomit up blood.

Honorable Mentions

Man, that thing I said about there not being any “further ado,” was pretty much total bullshit, wasn’t it! Well, take out your aggressions against me on these songs that were bad enough to be mentioned, but too good for inclusion.

White Light – Alright, if you want to talk about songs being far too simple for their own good, you start here. This might have edged its way into the list somewhere, but after hearing the much cooler Manchester version (plus the hilarious video they filmed to accompany it), I’ve gained a bit of extra respect for this track.

El Manana – A song that wouldn’t have been mentioned in this editorial at all had it not been picked to be a single. Once that happened, I started scrutinizing over this track and it fell apart immediately, in my eyes.

Don Quixote’s Christmas Bonanza – Yes, about as much energy went into the creation of this song as it takes you to lift up the toilet seat lid, but there’s something special about it that keeps it at least moderately near and dear to me.

Now, onto the actual list! (and I mean it this time)

Ten Worst Gorillaz Songs Ever Released

10. Mix 2 – File Mix 2 under the “I had twenty five minutes, a keyboard, and a two track mixer” category. Just a late night studio Democrazy-style babble session. Nonsensical vocals, sparser than sparse instrumental, and a drum beat that my younger sister (1 years old as of last month) probably wouldn’t have much trouble keeping up with. But while this track isn’t very good, but it is pretty fun. Especially thanks to Black Sheep, a member of the Gorillaz-Unofficial community and a pretty talented musician in his own respect. See, back in March, this website ran a contest to see who could come up with the most interesting and accurate lyrics for Mix 2.

Comedy gold, if you ask me. As a matter of fact, Mix 2 has occasionally worked its way onto my personal playlists, just because the song reminds me of Black Sheep’s lyrics. If it weren’t for that, I’d probably rather whack a can with my balls than listen to this one with any kind of regularity.

9. Man Research (Clapper) – This song made it because I needed a song from the self titled debut, and I can never remember how this one goes. Sometimes I get it mixed up with New Genious, but Man Research is, at its core, so unremarkable, that even after consistently listening to this album for four years, it’s out of my head five minutes after it’s over. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. No thanks.

8. Latin Simone (English) – Most will probably disagree with me on this one, but I’m really not feeling it. The tune that Damon supplies for this English version of Latin Simone is probably one of his least inspired. Very basic, very droll, sort of a “nothing more than what will fit into the chord progression” feel to it. The lyrics leave little to be desired as well. Actually, I suppose there’s a few Gorillaz songs with less than piercing lyricism, but Damon’s usually pretty good at mumbling his way around the sketchy parts. His clear annunciation in Latin Simone isn’t much of a help. Also, the vocals provided by the late, great Ibrahim Ferrer on the album version illuminated this track so completely (enhancing everything from the mood to the memories, even the instrumental), that Damon’s version has trouble getting out of its shadow. Too little, bad timing.

7. Murdoc is God – Well, I can say this for Murdoc is God: It lives up to its concept. A tongue-in-cheek shred mettle song with lyrics like “Murdoc is God, Johnny is Dead.” I suppose that the best was made with the sum of its parts, with one, blaring exception: That overdriven guitar is a headache in a puddle of razor blades in a blanket of steel wool. Literally cringe worthy. Go ahead and throw this one on your iPods if you must, but be sure and crank the volume down before it starts up. Your cochlea will thank you.

6. Dirty Harry – There’s very little about my opinion of this song that I haven’t already gone over at length with you before. Oh, here’s something new: I don’t like that Damon’s so low on the mix that no matter how hard you listen, there are spots where his vocals are indiscernible from the San Fernandez Youth Choir. There!

5. Dub Dumb – Well, nobody should’ve been expecting greatness from a throwaway track recorded for and donated to a video game. Actually, since I put the Ed Case refix into the worst remixes category, I feel pretty bad about Dub Dumb making my Ten Worst. Both tracks feature Sweetie Irie performing a reggae style of rapping called “Skank,” and he does a great job two out of two times. I have nothing against Sweetie, I think he’s fascinating to listen to. But fascinating is basically the opposite of the rest of this track. Other than Sweetie’s contributions, I believe I could perfectly reproduce this entire song, beginning to end, armed with nothing but Fruity Loops and Cubase, in about an hour and a half. I suppose the monkey chatter that’s sampled throughout is kind of fun in its own, unique way.

4. Bill Murray – When bands as good as The Bees and Gorillaz get together, it’s almost a statistical impossibility for a song this irritating to come out of the mix. And that synth maraca! Argh, my brain! Another thing that totally doesn’t work for me is that section where the instrumental cuts out and the vocal continues acapella. Bill Murray without the beat is less than nothing. What a waste. This track especially loses its edge when placed next door to the far superior Phase 2 dub B-Side, Spitting Out the Demons.

3. Clint Eastwood (Phi Life Cypher version) – There’s two prominent reasons why this song sucks. First, it’s completely outdone in every respect by the Clint Eastwood we all know and love. It’s missing the hook-heavy chorus, the instrumental is less polished, and Del’s flow on the commercial release fit the mood of the song in a way that Phi Life can’t even touch. Two: These lyrics are fucking brainless! I know from The Sounder that Phi Life is capable of much better. They should be embarrassed for themselves. A particular lowlight for me is: “I pulverize and bamboozle, shake numb skulls like a boodle…” Yech! That’s Marky Mark territory, there.

2. Samba at 13 – A 9 minute long Samba drum solo, anyone? Hmm? Anybody? No takers?

1. Left Hand Suzuki Method – Here we go, folks! The worst of the worst! The King Kamehameha shit stain on an otherwise mostly white pair of underoos. Give an Automator a shitload of unrelated samples, and he’ll put together something like Left Hand Suzuki Method (or Crapfest 9000, as I’m fond of calling it). If you didn’t already know, that’s what an Automator is: An emotionless, tasteless robot. He doesn’t feel, he automates. You take the sound of someone lighting and smoking a bong, a two minute clip of Miho Hattori happily chattering in broken English, and some violin ripped from ‘Roodborstje,’ some gut-rumbling bass, and you say, “Robot! Make me and mine a song to dance to on the high holy days!” Well, there you go! Is it a song? Sure it is! It follows a time signature, it has sections, it’s all unified by that violin solo. Does it work? Oh, heavens no. Not by a long shot. Even when talking B-Side territory, here’s one that should’ve been left to die a quiet life on the cutting room floor. Dan may or may not actually be a robot, but if it should ever be brought to trial, Left Hand Suzuki Method would be a pretty incriminating piece of evidence.

Take it or leave it, if I were to erect a metaphorical barrel that encompassed every piece of produced music with the name “Gorillaz” on it, these tracks would be at the bottom of said barrel.

– maybe in time, you’ll want to be Wazawaii‘s

(Opinions are the columnists’ own and do not necessarily reflect Gorillaz-Unofficial’s views)