Gorillaz Demon Days... The New Dark Side of The Moon?

This being my first post I'm not to sure what to say but here it goes. Any Dark Side of the Moon fan will need to go pick up the album or live DVD Demon Days by the Gorillaz, sit down with your favorite "stress reliever," and listen to this album in it's entirety. Just like Dark Side of the Moon (which will now be referred to as DSOTM), this album's full capability is not reached by listening to individual songs. DSOTM is considered by many to be the best concept album of all time and I personally believe that Demon Days should be held up to the same high regard. Demon Days is, without a doubt, the best concept album to come out since DSOTM.
Each song on Demon Days deals with global, political, moral, local and personal issues depending on where you are located in life, literally and figuratively. The music itself is completely mind blowing and I feel like the band, led by Damon Albarn of Blur fame, left absolutely nothing on the table in making the music. However, the backing beats laid down by Dangermouse are what take this album to an epic level. Dangermouse came to fame through his mash up of The Beatles' White Album with Jay Z's Black Album, better known as the Grey Album, and also his work as the other half of Gnarles Barkley. Like the great Floyd, Damon Albarn has used everything available to him from strings to digital instruments of the new age.
The lyrics of this album are equally mind blowing from the children's choir performance on "Dirty Harry" to the reading of "Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head" by actor Dennis Hopper. The former of these two, in the Bear's mind, is saying that in the world as we know it today to do something as enjoyable and innocent as dancing we constantly have to keep our guard up against the politically driven repression of mankind. The children's choir draws a parallel to Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall Part 2. Pink Floyd makes the famous statement "We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control" promoting individualism and "Dirty Harry" is saying that you literally have to protect yourself physically and mentally to maintain that individualism. The reading by Dennis Hopper takes us to "the land of the happy folk" where we find out just how evil greed and corruption is in our world, just as Pink Floyd did in the song "Money".
"Last Living Souls" by the Gorillaz makes one wonder if Damon is using this song title as a statement or as a question. It could easily be taken either way; On one hand he is stating that we are the last living souls, that if we stay on the path we are on we will be losing our souls and turning ourselves into mechanical beings that will have traded our individualism for conformity. In the other hand, the Gorillaz are then saying that we could very well be the last living souls on this planet if we don't start taking care of one another and our surroundings. The same could be said about the song "Us and Them" with the fact that people are more easily convinced to work against each other then with each other towards a greater good. If humanity continues to disagree with each other and argue over petty things instead of pulling together to see the evils that we are doing and that are being done to us, we will eventually be one conformed mass.
I apologize for the tangent but I figured it needed to be done so one could see the intention of these two albums and how they are trying to warn us of the issues to come. This is one thing that DSOTM did very well back in the 70's; Even though the album sold a lot of copies I don't think the message was taken in by the masses until later on in the album's life. I feel the same thing will happen with Demon Days. Even though it has not sold near as many albums as DSOTM (and no album probably will) the message it is conveying is one very near that of DSOTM. Both messages on these albums are very near the same, but the one thing that sets these albums apart from many, if not all, other albums is the fact that DSOTM and Demon Days are a musical story. The lyrics themselves take you on a journey of mind, body, and soul and instead of the music being the back drop, it also strikes an emotional chord with the listener; It completely engulfs you till the last second of the album when you are finally able to take a breath and realize what has just happened.
One last thing before I must go, but I find it very interesting, is that both of these bands made sure that the attention was focused on the music and not on the band itself. The Pink Floyd example would be the famous prism album cover, an all black cover with a prism on the front, which even inside the sleeve showed no pictures of the band mates, just the song lyrics. Also, the Gorillaz had the great idea of creating a band out of animated figures which also let the listener know that we are here for the music and not for the band itself. If one would like to see exactly what I mean by this go out and buy the DVD Demon Days Live from England’s Manchester Opera House. Thank You for your time and I hope you find this post as entertaining and informative as I hope it could be.

The Bear