Gorillaz – On Melancholy Hill
2010 · Directed by Jamie Hewlett & Pete Candeland
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Best comments
1.“Did I just see Snoop Dogg in a submarine?”
More comments
- 2.“I just realized that everyone with a soul is animated, and everything without one is computer-generated.”
The story
Gorillaz videos are basically a cartoon series that comes with albums attached, and On Melancholy Hill is the episode where everybody heads for Plastic Beach. It picks up where the Stylo video left off. Noodle is aboard an ocean liner when two Corsair fighter planes attack. She downs one with a Thompson submachine gun and slips away in a lifeboat with her guitar as the ship goes under. Then a giant Russel rises out of the sea right beneath her.
Meanwhile Murdoc, 2-D and Cyborg Noodle cruise the deep in a fleet of submarines crewed by the album's guest list – Lou Reed, De La Soul, Snoop Dogg, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Gruff Rhys. Superfast Jellyfish get sucked into the subs. They surface by a manatee perched on a sea stack, Cyborg Noodle takes a shotgun blast at the Boogieman and misses, and the fog lifts to show Plastic Beach. Jamie Hewlett and Pete Candeland directed, and the clip landed in the SIGGRAPH Video Review.
The song is the sweetest thing on the record: synth-pop written by Damon Albarn, out as the third single in June 2010. It barely dented the UK chart at the time, peaking at 78. Then it kept growing for fifteen years – platinum in the UK, played at nearly every Gorillaz show since, even a spot in a 2024 Tesco Christmas ad. Some songs sprint. This one floated.
