The concept band Gorillaz, conceived by Blur Frontman Damon Albarn and British comic book artist Jamie Hewlett. They have become highly successful despite the fact they are all fictional characters an are only shown in cartoon form. Gorillaz have always been about visual representation and a whole concept based around the band having their own personas and own story lines. The front cover doesn't stray from the visually pleasing videos with the band members with a side shot on the front of the LP Demon Days.
The cd itself also mirrors the image on the front cover with each member profile being silhouetted against a white background.
Parodying The Beatles ‘Let it be’ album cover that also shows the band members being placed into four individual boxes. This is taken by the clever artwork and spin that the Gorillaz use to their advantage. Also by this they are straight away comparing their selves to The Beatles. this could be compared with their innovative art style and doing something no one has ever seen (animation).
A limited edition of the album also exists and although it contains similar artwork to the regular edition, it does boast constructional differences. The Digipack folds out into four panels in an ‘X’ shape revealing the cd in the middle of them.theres nothing different with the music its just a new artwork With the ability to put one of the main four band members and being able to individually place a certain band member as tour front cover. This engages with the audience in a huge way as it allows them to create their own unique version of the album.
The booklet insert for the standard edition of the LP is interesting as well as instead of presenting the lyrics for each song, instead individual images that represent each are on the pages. This is due to the fact that Albarn and Hewlett wanted the theming and visual narrative to be more dominant than that of the lyrical contents relevance. Albarn has said that the album is meant to be a depiction of a journey through the night in which each track represents a confrontation with a personal ‘demon’. Therefore each song has its own visual representation of these demons that are part of the concept.
The back cover of the digipack is fairly tame with the track listing placement in top left hand corner in a standard black font against a pure white background. Opposite sits yet more artwork of the fictional band members. This time, Japanese guitarist Noodle Sits in the foreground holding a guitar accompanied by the reccurring character of ‘The Monkey’. The remaining members of the band are placed in the background in the shadows, this almost highlighting noodle as the creative influence for the album, that the spotlight is on her. This continual reinforcement of this characters is interesting as it forces viewers and listeners to invest into the idea that these characters are real, that they are the ones who created the album. It also helps people understand the members from the front cover image i more of a contextual situation, how they relate to each other.
Overall the Digipack for Gorillaz second album is a visual feast, one that incorporates a continuity for the characters created for their first album and gives them a coherently central placement within the record, there presence as characters and the motifs of the album are the core of the pack with every image bearing them as stimulus for the viewer.
