Robbed hit of the week 1/9/23 - Gorillaz' "Clint Eastwood"...

"Clint Eastwood" - Gorillaz

from the album Gorillaz (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #57

This week's "robbed hit" comes from a "virtual band", something that hasn't been a big thing since the late 1960s when The Archies, a studio group marketed as the animated teen cast of the TV cartoon show Archie, went to #1 with "Sugar Sugar". This time around, it had nothing to do with television, but rather it was the side project of British singer/musician Damon Albarn. Albarn had founded the "Britpop" band Blur in the late 1980's. Originally named "Seymour", the group changed their name after being signed to Food Records, where they released their debut album Leisure in 1990. The first single from the set, the "double-A-sided" "She's So High" paired with "I Know", came close to the top-40 in the UK, peaking at #48. But it would be their follow-up, "There's No Other Way", that would break the band big. Produced by Stephen Street, who worked with the Smiths, the song peaked at #8 in the United Kingdom and was their first hit in the U.S., reaching #5 on Billboard magazine's Alternative Rock radio chart and popping on to the main "pop" Hot 100 at #82. The Leisure album crested at #7 on the British Albums Sales chart in 1991.

Blur's second album Modern Life Is Rubbish failed to gain on the momentum of their debut, but they rebounded in a big way with their third, Parklife, in 1994, which topped the British Albums Chart and scored two top ten British hits. One of those, the sexually ambiguous "Girls and Boys", crossed over the Atlantic, becoming their highest-charting single on the Hot 100 at #59, as well as on the Alternative Rock radio list at #4. That album lead up to the high point in the bands trajectory at the time, when they went head to head with fellow Brit rockers Oasis, releasing singles on the same day, with Blur's "Country House" winning out the week, landing their first #1 in their homeland. That came from their fourth disc The Great Escape, which also went to #1 on the albums chart.

The band changed their sound for their self-titled fifth album, and landed a second #1 UK hit in 1997 with "Beetlebum". That very British-sounding track didn't get play in the U.S., but the next single from the record, the vaguely-titled "Song 2", ended up being the group's most known song in America, even though it never made the Hot 100 (it wasn't released as a commercial single), but it did get to #6 on the Alternative Rock list. The Blur album went to #61 on the Billboard 200 sales tally and went on to sell over a half million copies.

They detoured yet again in 1999 on their 13 album, going U2 circa Rattle and Hum on lead single "Tender", which got to #2 on the British singles chart. The album was their fourth consecutive #1 set, but after a greatest hits set, the band split up to work on their own musical paths.

Instead of releasing solo material, as bandmate Graham Coxon did, Albarn funneled his energy into an experimental project that would find him collaborating with comic book artist Jamie Hewlett. With the idea of a fictional act that would be animated/illustrated by Hewlett, Albarn, who had been working on non-Blur material for a few years, got together with American producer Dan "The Automator" Nakamura for the music. The resulting "anonymity" and separation from Albarn's history (which included the four "band members" all having detailed backstories) allowed him to expand the sonic range of what would be released under the "Gorillaz" name. Damon nominally was behind the character of lead singer/guitarist "2-D", with the band completed by guitar player "Noodle", bassist "Murdoc", and drummer "Russel Hobbs", the latter voiced by Remi Kabaka Jr, who eventually would become the actual percussionist/drummer in the real group.

Gorillaz, signed to Parlophone in the UK and EMI/Virgin in the States, released an EP Tomorrow Comes Today in Britain in 2000. A year later, Albarn and Nakamura emerged with a proper worldwide single, "Clint Eastwood", which would feature rapper Teren "Del The Funky Homosapien" Jones. Jones had worked with Nakamura on the Deltron 3030 collaboration album, which nicked the Billboard 200 at #194. Del himself had been releasing albums since 1991, and his debut I Wish My Brother George Were Here, a critical fave, spun off the single "Mistadobalina", which hit #55 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart that year. The lyrics to "Clint Eastwood" had nothing to do with the actor, but the name check helped grab attention to the group as it was. Perhaps it was the beginning of the song, which sounded vaguely like something pulled from an Ennio Morricone western movie cut, before it switched to Albarn singing in an almost ragtime-like melody before Del jumps in with the rap verses, which are very illustrious but still quite mysterious. The music video was a way to make an introduction of the "members" of Gorillaz, and is just as vital to the experience as was the music itself...

While "Clint Eastwood" reached the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart, since the song was only available on an import single (which didn't count towards sales) and on the debut album, it stalled right under the halfway mark on the big Hot 100 list in September of 2001. The track spent a half a year (26 weeks) on the Alternative Rock radio chart, with one of those at #3. Internationally, the single was a big success, topping the Italian chart for a week, and making the top ten in Germany (#2), Austria (#2), Switzerland (#3), the United Kingdom (#4), Portugal (#4), Ireland (#5), and Sweden (#7). It also hit the top-40 in Belgium (#11 Wallonia/#21 Flanders), New Zealand (#12), Norway (#13), Denmark (#16), France (#17), Australia (#17), and the Netherlands (#26). The Gorillaz album, released originally in the UK in March of that year, crested at #14 on the Billboard 200 sales tally in the US, going on to sell over a million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2002, "Clint Eastwood" was nominated for Best Rap Performance by a Duo/Group, losing out to Outkast for their classic "Ms. Jackson".

The second single from the album was "19-2000", which featured the Talking Heads/Tom Tom Club's Tina Weymouth as well as Miho Hatori of the band Cibo Matto, who had voiced the character of "Noodle" during most of the act's tenure. Perhaps the even more vague lyrical nature of the song as compared to the title, and electronica production, kept it from getting traction , though it again made the Mainstream Top-40 radio chart at #34 and Alternative Rock list at #23. It also topped the singles chart in New Zealand and made the top ten in the UK (#6), Croatia (#6), and Belgium (#3 Flanders/#30 Wallonia). That was followed by "Rock The House", which brought back Del The Funky Homosapien, which peaked at #18 in the UK. Finally, a reworked version of the title track from their original EP, "Tomorrow Comes Today", scored a fourth British top-40 hit at #33.

After a remix album done from the Gorillaz tracks done in reggae style, which had a minor British hit with "Lil' Dub Chefin" (UK #73), Albarn would return briefly to Blur, but in time will bring the Gorillaz back out, and this time to massive international succcess (and on my main "song of the day" series).

(9/10)

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For their appearance at the 2002 BRIT Awards, Albarn brought on the British rap duo Phi Life Cypher to perform the rap break in the song in front of the giant animated screens...