Gorillaz

As the Monkees and Marilyn Manson have taught us, silly, cartoonish ideas usually produce silly, cartoonish music. Gorillaz are a silly cartoon of a band, quite literally. The band is the animated brainchild of a host of über-creative souls including Tank Girl creator Jamie Hewlett (who drew the band’s four “members”: Murdoc, 2D, Russel, and Noodle), Blur frontman Damon Albarn, producer Dan “the Automator” Nakamura, ex–Talking Heads Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, Cibo Matto’s Miho Hatori, and Bay Area hip-hop experimentalists Del Tha Funky Homosapien and Kid Koala. While the band may be fictional, the music is very real—an absolutely breathtaking, downtempo mix of ambient, atmospheric pop, experimental hip-hop and shadowy, King Tubby–style dub. Albarn handles a lot of the vocals with the Del tossing in strings of wild rhymes now and again, but credit Nakamura, who’s previously made other strange projects fly (Handsome Boy Modeling School, Dr. Octogon), with ensuring this cartoon’s no joke.