Without any prior indication, on Sept. 11., Gorillaz released a new single called “The Happy Dictator (featuring Sparks)” on Spotify and YouTube. The song is about a dictator banning news in his country to ensure people only know his version of the truth. One day later, Gorillaz announced their new album and tour “The Mountain,” which will release on February 28th. Throughout this last quarter of the year, Gorillaz has released two more singles following “The Happy Dictator,” with songs like “The Manifesto (Featuring Trueno & Proof)” and “The God of Lying (Featuring IDLES).”
Unlike their previous music videos, all of the videos from “The Mountain” seem to stick to a more VHS vibe. Gorillaz’s four animated characters (2D, Russell, Murdoc and Noodle) all follow a PNG movement style—still images zooming in or out and swaying left and right, while featured artists seem to actually record footage of themselves for the videos. The music follows an Indian music theme, considering the fact that the characters are dressed in a mix of their casual clothing, and clothing more suitable to wear in warmer places like India. The music video for “The Happy Dictator” also has the lyrics translated from Hindi, a common language in India.
“The Mountain” is an album more focused on the relationship between a dictator and his people. In “The Happy Dictator,” the melody follows an overall positive and hopeful theme. However the lyrics follow a more darker approach towards how the dictator handles problems. Lyrics like, “In a world of fiction I am a velvet glove” and later, “I’ll propagate eternity and seal it with my kiss” subtly hint at the dictator being content with changing the way this civilization is run in order to make it seem like he is the savior everyone has waited for.
However other songs, like “The God of Lying,” completely change the dictator’s personality. Lyrics like, “Running to the exit with a huge grin on my face,/ Screaming hope is behind and I wanna get high” show how the dictator is only in his position for the power he has access to. And now that he has the most powerful and invincible position, he can turn his back on his people without fear. This interpretation is also shown with lyrics from the music video for the song“The Manifesto,” where featured artist Proof sang, “No one can convince the invincible to be sensible.”
Each Gorillaz album has its own set of unique music, and “The Mountain” is no exception. The beats and lyrics that they produced for all their current singles so far have been unique and amazing, which effectively keeps their listeners more intrigued for what the next single might sound like. Gorillaz has also been noticeably experimenting with tempo changes throughout their singles. Their single “The Manifesto” has very abnormal tempo changes that they have been able to incorporate well into their songs.
The still image animation isn’t new to Gorillaz either. They’ve had songs that used this same style of animation that “The Mountain” mainly uses, like their song “Tomorrow Comes Today.” However, all the animations in “The Mountain” just seem more lazily done compared to all of their other music videos.
Unless collab artists record real footage of themselves to put in their videos, all of the music videos from “The Mountain” consist of Gorillaz’s characters being dragged across the entire screen while lyrics appear, which is disappointing when you know that these artists are also well known for the animations in music videos like “19-2000” and “Cracker Island.”
“The Mountain” brings attention to the cruelty of dictatorships, and how everyone’s everyday life can be so easily controlled by putting all your hope into one person. The way the music and lyrics portray how easy it is for someone of high power to go back on their word makes the entire album worth listening to. If there was a time to listen to the singles in order, it would be now since on Dec. 12, Gorillaz released their fourth single of “The Mountain,” titled “Damascus (featuring Omar Souleyman & Yasiin Bey).”
