Its been a while since the last one because work has been super busy. But heres a new review: Review 5: Gorillaz – Stylo Stylo is one of the least appreciated singles from Gorillaz, which is a shame because overall, it’s a fairly good track. Damon Albarn, ever since his Blur days, has always done well with using many simple elements to weave into a complex whole, and Stylo is no different. The melody is this weird, dark electro-funk that’s lead by this oppressive deep bass with these lilting, almost dreamlike, accents feeding off of it. All these elements give it this menacing, ethereal feel to the song and gives it a distinct flavour that is trademark Gorillaz. What’s more interesting is that the song incorporates three vocalists: Damon Albarn, Bobby Womack and Mos Def. What quickly becomes apparent though, is that Damon himself is not the strongest. This is most likely an intentional feature as the track focuses on Bobby Womack, whose vocals absolutely dominate to track with his trademark power and grace that demands attention. Damon tries his best to play to his strengths as well, using his pleasant, layered and soft voice. But his melodic lilt falls flat compared Bobby’s “there’s a possessed Trumpet inside my lungs” balls-to-the-wall vocals. The person that suffers most on this track, when compared to the others, is Mos Def; while Def was never a shining example of his craft, he was always a competent rapper who does have some interesting points to make and a decent track here and there. So the fact they turn down his volume and then muffle his words under various effects is rather disappointing. Again, while I’m aware that this entire track was centred on Bobby, that’s no excuse to intentionally leave other vocalists so far in the background. What’s really telling about why this track was never as popular as Clint Eastwood or Dirty Harry (apart from bucking the theme, I guess), is how lacklustre this track really is compared to other Gorillaz songs. As interesting as all these individual elements are, it doesn’t seem to have the distinct, cohesive passion that we’ve come to expect from Gorillaz. Part of this might have to do with the fact that Womack’s part, which is central to the track, was improvised; with all the other elements built around it. This composed-after-the-fact style leads to this vague direction of “dark and powerful” without any central drive. In comparison to Double Bass off the Self-Titled album, Stylo’s this weak, forgettable footnote in the history of a band that redefined “dark and powerful” back in the early 00’s. It does sound kind of spoilt when I’m complaining that “I merely got ‘good’ instead of the ‘Earth-shaking’ that I was expecting”. But when you’re sitting on the history, and pedigree, of Gorillaz (a band that has openly stated it’s goal is to break through the monotonous Pop scene), to be left with this limp, lifeless but, ultimately playable song, it is simply disappointing; and that’s the problem, it’s not that it’s a bad song, it’s worse, it’s a song that doesn’t resonate with you in any sense. Bottom Line: Decent but Gorillaz are capable of much more. You’d probably like this if: You were born after 2005 and you have never been exposed to music from then or before then.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 13:58:36 +0000
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