//GORILLAZ DISCOGRAPHY//

Covers

Regular Edition	Experience Edition (Japan and ROTW)	Japan Regular Edition and vinyl edition	iTunes Deluxe Edition

Regular Tshirt Edition	Exprience Tshirt Edition

Gorillaz' third studio album. Damon and Jamie decided to make a third Gorillaz album during a 2008 vacation in Devon, England that they took together with their families. They were inspired by reports of successful Gorillaz Sound System shows, seeing plastic on a certain beach in Devon and getting excited about that initial concept, and the fact that people weren't willing to strongly back their Carousel project. Musical work on a film / theatrical / music project from Damon and Jamie called Carousel which has been in planning stages since 2007 was transferred to the Gorillaz album. Carousel was about "the mystical aspects of Britain" and although it is now Gorillaz it "still maintains a lot of that melancholy", according to Damon. Jamie saying Damon had written 70 songs for Carousel. Damon also says he wants to express "the idea that plastic, we see it as being against nature but it’s come out of nature. We didn’t create plastic, nature created plastic." (Paul Morley interview, The Observer, 2009). He also compares shows like the X-Factor and American Idol to "buying a ready made meal in loads of plastic packaging" and says Gorillaz albums are intended to be an alternative to that, pop, but with some kind of depth. The collaborators on the album were asked to contribute based on the idea of Plastic Beach, and the whole album is based loosely around that central concept. The sound was originally (2008) said to be 'more experimental' than previous Gorillaz work, with some orchestral material, and possibly less pop overall. However as recording went on the material became more Pop and accessible, and after the 2009 Blur reunion shows, Damon said he was inspired to make the lyrics clearer and more coherent. Both Damon and Jamie went to Syria and Lebanon for a few weeks in Spring 2009 for music sessions and artistic inspiration. Critically, the album was received very positively, albeit with a few dissenting opinions. The album's Metacritic score hovers a few points lower than Demon Days. In sales terms, the album has not so far been as successful as the two previous Gorillaz studio albums. It has very impressive debut chart positions (including #2 in the US, #2 in the UK and #1 in Australia) but sales fell off quicker around the world. To date, the album has not had a radio hit and critics noted that there seemed no obvious 'hit single' in the tracklisting. A vinyl edition was only released over 6 months after the initial album release.

Release dates and chart positions

UK: 08/03/10 – highest chart position: 2
USA: 09/03/10 – highest chart position: 2
JAPAN: 03/03/10 - highest chart position: 5

Vinyl editions: UK on 13/09/10 on Parlophone, US on 28/09/10 on Virgin Records. Vinyl not officially released in any other countries, though sometimes available as an import.

Formats / Releases:

All formats feature the following basic tracklisting:-

1. Orchestral Intro [1:09]
2. Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach [3:35]
3. White Flag [3:43]
4. Rhinestone Eyes [3:20]
5. Stylo [4:30]
6. Superfast Jellyfish [2:54]
7. Empire Ants [4:43]
8. Glitter Freeze [4:03]
9. Some Kind of Nature [2:59]
10. On Melancholy Hill [3:53]
11. Broken [3:17]
12. Sweepstakes [5:20]
13. Plastic Beach [3:47]
14. To Binge [3:55]
15. Cloud of Unknowing [3:06]
16. Pirate Jet [2:32]

Bonus tracks:-

17. Pirate's Progress [4:03] (both Japanese editions and iTunes Deluxe edition)
18. Three Hearts, Seven Seas, Twelve Moons [2:15] (iTunes Deluxe edition only)

Details of the physical and digital components of the various editions:-

Standard Edition
physical components:-
- gatefold card sleeve with CD in card inner sleeve. dusk cover
- 4 page booklet with credits only.
- standard 16-track CD
digital components:- (accessible on gorillaz.com by accessing the non-specific URL on the sleeve):-
- 8 downloadable wallpapers (sketch Noodle holding a mountain, cut down dusk cover, cut down day cover, noodle connected to wires, noodle standing in front of the red disk, stylo cover without logo, photo of the plastic beach model showing big rick black's record shack, watercolour of noodle and the skull)
- 16-page digital booklet same as the physical one for the Experience Edition

Standard Edition with tshirt
physical components:-
Same as the Standard Edition, with the addition of:-
- Large size black tshirt with red album logo and red Gorillaz logo in same font
- Printed box to contain the tshirt and Standard Edition.
digital components:-
Same as the Standard Edition

Japanese Standard Edition
physical components:-
Same as the Standard Edition, except additional / altered physical components:-
- day cover instead of dusk cover
- 18-page Japanese black and white booklet with commentary and lyrics in English and Japanese
- wrap-around strip with Japanese text
- standard CD replaced with CD with extra 17th track 'Pirate's Progress'
digital components:-
Same as the Standard Edition

Experience Edition
physical components:-
- gatefold card sleeve with CD and DVD in separate printed card inner sleeves on either side. night cover
- 16 page booklet with credits and artwork, a few lyrics from the album and many more that are not on there
standard 16-track CD
- DVD with 35-minute documentary 'The Making Of Plastic Beach' (DVD is region 0 and PAL or NTSC depending on territory)
- card wraparound strip with printed code necessary to access the Experience digital extras online, instructions and description in local language
digital components (accessible on gorillaz.com using the included personalised code):-
- 8 downloadable wallpapers (submarine, detail of Noodle from the 4 standing in line picture, night cover without logo, Sun Moon Stars sweepstakes rifle shoot, 2D in the boat, Noodle riding giant Russel's head, aerial Plastic Beach shot, Noodle with black eye detail)
- 2 downloadable screensavers (moving view around Plastic Beach, Noodle 2D and Murdoc swimming)
- access to the third level of a web game you can play online 'Escape To Plastic Beach'. The first two levels are freely accessible to everyone. The third level must be accessed via the Experience Edition code, or a payment of £1.50 (if you pay £1.50, you also get a download of 'Superfast Jellyfish' in mp3 format
- 23-page downloadable digital booklet (the 'extra' 23rd page over and above the iTunes edition booklet is simply the dusk cover. booklet includes DVD credits at the end. However, the backgrounds of a few pages differ from the iTunes Deluxe booklet, they lack certain drawings over the photographs of Plastic Beach. Also, the credits are different in places, the Experience Edition has credits for the included DVD, the iTunes edition has credits for its videos and extras)
- access to an online video of a tour of the Plastic Beach website with Murdoc commentary

Experience Edition with tshirt
physical components:-
Same as the Experience Edition except
- Large size white tshirt with pink album logo and Gorillaz logo in same font in black
- Printed box to contain the tshirt and Experience Edition
digital components:-
Same as the Experience Edition

Japanese Experience Edition
physical components:-
Same as the Experience Edition, except:-
- 18-page Japanese black and white booklet with commentary and lyrics in English and Japanese
- standard CD replaced with CD with extra 17th track 'Pirate's Progress'
- Sticker sheet (heads of all 4, Superfast Jellyfish, others)
- Fold-out poster (pirate Murdoc holding other three. reverse has further Japanese text)
digital components:-
Same as the Experience Edition

Digital Standard Edition
physical components:-
none, digital format
digital components:-
- 16 tracks in the digital retailer's format
- Some retailers e.g. iTunes included the 16-page digital booklet as a download

iTunes Deluxe Edition (only available from iTunes)
physical components:-
none, digital format
digital components:-
- dawn cover as the digital album art
- 16 tracks in 256kbps AAC format
- iTunes LP format graphical interface, based on a cut-down version of the cinema room / library in the Plastic Beach website
- 2 bonus audio tracks in 256kbps AAC ('Pirates Progress' and 'Three Hearts, Seven Seas, Twelve Moons')
- 8 downloadable wallpapers (dawn cover without logo, all four standing full picture, superfast jellyfish cover, Noodledroid shooting out of mouth detail, 2D and Noodle in boat in front of Plastic Beach, Mark E Smith and Einar Orn pic, detail of Murdoc from Murdoc and evil looking Noodledroid picture, detail of photo of the glass dome / lighthouse on Plastic Beach)
- 2 downloadable screensavers (superfast jellyfish, Plastic Beach pack shots)
- Fish Flam Game (actually part of the download, not played online)
- art gallery (31 pictures)
- digital booklet (22 pages plus outer 'notebook' cover)
- 6 mini videos for tracks from Plastic Beach (all made by members of Zombie Flesh Eaters on a limited budget. Tracks: To Binge (Glyn Dillon), Rhinestone Eyes (Matt Watkins), Cloud Of Unknowing (Seb Monk), Some Kind Of Nature (Matt Watkins), Superfast Jellyfish (James Coore), Glitter Freeze (James Coore))
- making of stylo video (17 minutes)
- stylo video
- orchestral trailer video
- all 12 Plastic Beach trailer videos that originally appeared on Gorillaz.com and Youtube
- 3 ident videos (Russel, 2D, Murdoc)
- digital story booklet (similar to Phase 1 and 2's promo booklets)
- Flying to Plastic Beach intro video
- digital lyrics 'jukebox' where all lyrics can be read.

Vinyl edition
physical components:-
- day cover, same as the Japanese edition
- 2 33rpm double-sided vinyls
- Gatefold vinyl sleeve
- No inserts and all artwork used is the same as can be found in the other editions
digital components:-
- none

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