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Gorillaz' Plastic Beach
Series: 33 1/3
Brief Description
Gorillaz were, from the very beginning, as much conceptual art as they were a musical group. A collaboration between Albarn and visual artist Jamie Hewlett, the project was conceived as a virtual band that could comment on the empty and manufactured nature of popular culture. They...
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December 2026
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Gorillaz' Plastic Beach
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See moreDelves into the album's intricate blend of art and environmental commentary, looking at its role as a pioneering concept album in the Cli-Fi genre, and highlights the intertwined relationship between music, culture, and the climate crisis.
Delves into the album's intricate blend of art and environmental commentary, looking at its role as a pioneering concept album in the Cli-Fi genre, and highlights the intertwined relationship between music, culture, and the climate crisis.
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Description
Gorillaz were, from the very beginning, as much conceptual art as they were a musical group. A collaboration between Albarn and visual artist Jamie Hewlett, the project was conceived as a virtual band that could comment on the empty and manufactured nature of popular culture. They quickly expanded into videos, books, and games which detailed a complex and surreal mythology, engaging with a variety of social and political issues.
But Plastic Beach took this to a new level. Damon Albarn's encounter with plastic pollution at Hallsands Beach inspired the album's meditations on the Anthropocene – an epoch marked by significant human impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems.
The book positions Plastic Beach as a concept album reflecting on the Anthropocene, combining commentary on environmental degradation and consumer culture with attempts to imagine a future beyond the rapacity and destructiveness of this era.
Series: 33 1/3
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Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9798765132852
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 12 November 2026
Country: United States
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Width: 121.0mm
Height: 165.0mm
Weight: 0g
Pages: 152
About the Author
Ihor Junyk is Professor of Cultural Studies and English literature at Trent University in Canada. He is the author of Foreign Modernism: Cosmopolitanism, Identity, and Style in Paris (2013).
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