Gorillaz were, from the very beginning, as much conceptual art as they were a musical group. A collaboration between Albarn and visual artist Jaimie Hewlett, the project was conceived as a virtual band that could comment on the empty and manufactured nature of popular culture. They quickly expanded into videos, books, comics, and games which detailed a complex and surreal mythology and engaged with a variety of social and political issues. But Plastic Beach took this to a new level.
Damon Albarn’s encounter with plastic pollution at Hallsands Beach inspired the album’s meditations on the Anthropocene an epoch marked by significant human impact on Earth’s geology and ecosystems. The book positions Plastic Beach as a concept album that reflects on the Anthropocene, combining commentary on environmental degradation and consumer culture with attempts to imagine a future beyond the rapacity and destructiveness of this era.
