Gorillaz' Plastic Beach

Gorillaz were, from the very beginning, as much conceptual art as they were a musical group. A collaboration between Albarn and visual artist Jaimie 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, comics, and games which detailed a complex and surreal mythology and engaged 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 that reflects 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.

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).

Product details

• Authors: Ihor Junyk, Junyk Ihor
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 03.09.2026
• EAN: 9798765132852
• ISBN: 9798765132852
• No. of pages: 152
• Series: 33 1/3
• Subjects: Rock, London, Greater London, Climate Change, Rock & Pop music, Individual composers & musicians, specific bands & groups, MUSIC / History & Criticism, MUSIC / Individual Composer & Musician, MUSIC / Genres & Styles / Rock, MUSIC / Genres & Styles / Electronic, Music reviews & criticism, Musicians, singers, bands and groups, Music reviews and criticism, c 2010 to c 2019, Electronic Music