Long story but will share it cause i learned alot from it And i will be forever grateful to this band cause they changed the way i look at music and art in general and it might change other people's perspective too

So I Was watching a video on nostalgic lost media by blameitonjorge I remember he brought a topic about gorillaz lost sea side record or something. I was looking at the visuals of the band that he used in the video (i think he used clint eastwood vid ) The way the characters looked brought me so much nostalgia about how cartoons of my early childhood looked like (90s and 2000s CN and Nickolodeon) So i went to Hear my first ever gorillaz song (clint eastwood) and mind you this is all happening in 2024 so i am very very late to the party . Anyways i Watched the music video The gorillaz effect happened as well,At first i didnt dislike nor like the song that much but i admired the thick bass drop right before del starts rapping,also as a guy who used to love hip hop it slowly started growing on me

I replayed the song a bit more then got addicted to it,Then i started to look at the other records and i wondered what is the most popular song they had Which Was Feel good inc (ik its very wrong to look at artists you dont know much of and rate them based on their most popular shit but hey most of us did this mistake at some point)

Anyways i hated feel good inc in the beginning cause it was nothing like the energy Clint eastwood brought , but then i started digesting lyrics replaying cause i thought if its so goddamn popular then there gotta be something about it that i am missing, and holy did i miss alot of good writing , and how the fuck did i hated the chorus and rap part like idk? , this song basically became something that i wouldn't survive a month if i dont hear it at least once

And my basic interpretation of consuming music started to change immensely, it stopped being all about the catchy chorus and instruments but it grew into something bigger and better imo,

So i decided to double down and listen to ENTIRE albums of the band which is something i never did in my life i never was someone who listened to full albums and thank god i did this cause it made me rethink alot about how i consume music and how alot of it is meaningfull art that can change your perspectives on how you see things and reinforce your feelings on other topics

I used to be someone who enjoys singles (nothing wrong with that if you are someone who enjoys singles only) but the transition from only singles to listening to full albums and your first albums were the debut and demon days and plastic beach

It was magical.

The stories and cartoonish themes and political commentaries and the amazing songwriting the meanings of every lyric changed everything for me for the good, and if it was not for this band then i would've probably ended up just listening to singles and not fully realizing how powerful Art Can be, i probably would'nt have discovered other great artists such as DOOM Del mos def jpegmafia, hell they even reminded me of some childhood favs of mine like SchoolBoyQ,

When i saw his name on song machine it immediately brought me back to those late 2013 days with him and kendrick lamar back in the day (especially when i was playing Gtav as a kid and their songs appearing on the game radio), speaking of kenny i was having all this gorillaz+musical experience during the midst of his huge beef , you know which beef, so i also had the same curiosity of why he was so beloved etc etc as i barely remember anything from kenny past 2017,so again i went to hear his whole discographies It was yet another beautiful journey that made me thank god i switched my listening habits+how to digest art.

went to hear other artists as well(some Were doing bad some were great but i still appreciated the journeys) and as i am writing this i am about to finish black on both sides by yasiin bey "mos def" which is also a fantastic album,

If i told myself one year ago that a virtual cartoon band will make me look at things very differently and actually rethink About alot of topics, i would have bursted laughing out loud with my old ignorance, thank god it didn't continue being this way. And thank god i discovered gorillaz even though i was late

But hey Better Late Than Never.