By: NATHANIEL ROBINSON
The highly anticipated new album from popular band Gorillaz, Cracker Island, has just been released. With many fans and critics excited to see what the new album will explore, there’s one issue. The album is only 11 tracks long, including a bonus track. This wouldn’t usually be an issue, as shorter albums can still be a great listen. The problem arises when you realize that Gorillaz had already put out 5 of the songs previously as singles. These were released throughout the end of 2022 going into 2023. So, when I opened the album up on Spotify to find that nearly HALF the album was songs that I and others had already listened to, I’m sure you could imagine the disappointment. The music is still great, I really enjoy the sound that they went with for this project, but having heard so many of the songs already, it really detracted from the experience. Even more so, the singles released were some of the best songs off of the album. So to me personally, it really felt like I was just listening to the singles again with some fillers songs in between with the only favs from the album really being Oil and Tarantula. That being said, the singles ARE really good. So I’m inclined to give the album an 8/10 despite my disappointment.
Favorite Tracks:
Cracker Island
Baby Queen
Oil
New Gold