Who is Damon Albarn?

Involved in at least three music project (member of a rock band, a virtual band and a supergroup), multi-instrumentalist, composer, singer, record producer, singer-songwriter and the only thing most of you know about this amazing musician is the leading voice of 2-D from the most famous virtual band - Gorillaz.

Damon Albarn was born 49 years ago (March 23, 1968) and spend his early life in Leytonstone, East London and Colchster, Essex where his family moved after living for a few months in Turkey. At his secondary school Albarn met the future guitarist of Blur - Graham Coxon. After finishing secondary school Damon moved to London to start acting school but left after the firs year and decided to took up writing and performing music.

B L U R

Being in Blur has allowed me to travel and hear the music that's being made all over the world.

At the age of 20, Albarn met Coxon again in Goldsmith College in New Cross, London where he took part-time course. Before Blur was signed to Food Records, they have changed the name a few times (the Circus, Seymour). Albarn wrote almost every song on the seven full-lenght albums of the band. Five of which reached #1 in the United Kingdom and all of them the top 15. When Graham Coxon left the band Albarn stated, "If Coxon won't return then I'll be playing guitar but it'll just be fast, punk songs. Why don't I get another guitarist? Because there's none better than Coxon". In 2001 band members started to be involved in other projects; Coxon recorded solo albums and Albarn dedicated his time to Gorillaz. In 2015, after 12 years of waiting, Blur's fan could have enjoyed studio album "The Magic Whip", which sold "more than the rest of the top five combined" according to The Guardian.

G O R I L L A Z

The Gorillaz cartoons seem more real to me than the actual people on TV. Because at least you know that there's some intelligence behind the cartoons, and there's a lot of work that's gone into it, so it can't all be just a lie.

Damon Albarn is co-funder, vocalist, instrumentalist, principal songwriter in an English virtual band called Gorillaz. In 1998, together with Jamie Hewlett, an English comic book artist and designer, they have created 4 members of the band: 2-D (lead vocals, keyboards), Murdoc Niccals (bass guitar), Noodle (guitar, keyboards) and Russell Hobbs (drums and percussion). If you watch MTV for too long, it's a bit like hell - there's nothing of substance there. So we got this idea for a cartoon band, something that would be a comment on that, said Albarn after watching MTV with Hewlett. An important information about Gorillaz is that all four members are not persons of any real life musicians who are involved in the project! Albarn is the only permanent musician in the band therefore Gorillaz music is collaboration of various artists, isuch us D12, Snoop Dogg, De La Soul, Noel Gallagher or Lebanese National Orchesta for Oriental Arabic Music.

The debut album (2001) "Tomorrow Comes Today" have been sold in over seven million copies and thanks to that enetered the Guinness Book of World Records as the most successful virtual band. The newest album "Humanz" was released on 28 April 2017 after 7 years of waiting. Jamie Hewlett discussed plans for a Gorillaz TV series to debut in 2018.

S O L O  C A R E E R  A N D  S I D E - P R O J E CT S

I have to wear a new T-shirt every night. I throw them into the audience. One day I'm going to go around the world and reclaim all my T-shirts.

Damon Albarn is involved in many music projects, cooperating with various artists and recording albums:

• Solo albums - Everyday Robots (2014),
• Solo EPs - Democrazy (2003),
• Live albums - Live at the De De De Der (2014),
• Collaboration albums & EP's - Mali Music (2002); The Good, the Bad & the Queen (2007); Live from SoHo (2007); Kinshasa One Two (2011); Rocket Juice & the Moon (2012); Leave-Taking (2012); Maison Des Jeunes (2013); In C Mali (2014); The Orchestra of Syrian Musicians and Guests (2016),
• Film, opera and theatre soundtracks - Ravenous (1999); 101 Reykjavík (2002); Monkey: Journey to the West (2008); Dr Dee (2012); wonder.land (2016).

The best thing about Damon Albarn is that he doesn't try to complicate things to make himself look more talented. He's content with simplicity in song like this, and this song is one of the best and the most beautiful tracks. Also he hasn't got a massive range yet the most beautiful tone. A true inspiration for future musicians, commented one of YouTube users under "On Melancholy Hill Accoustic" video.

More info about Damon Albarn can be found here:

http://www.damonalbarnmusic.com/

https://www.youtube.com/user/damonalbarnmusic

https://www.instagram.com/damonalbarn/?hl=en

Beata Jaranowska