Gorillaz – Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez (2020) | Full Album Guide, Tracklist & Facts
🎧 Overview of Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez
Gorillaz returned in 2020 with a radically different release strategy in Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez, an episodic, collaboration-heavy project that blurred the line between album and ongoing series. Instead of a traditional studio LP, the band released tracks as “episodes,” each featuring a different guest artist, reflecting the fragmented, hyper-digital culture of the late 2010s and early 2020s.
The album represents a hybrid concept: part multimedia project, part collaborative compilation, and part narrative experiment set inside the Gorillaz universe.
📀 Album Tracklist
Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez includes the following tracks:
- Strange Timez (feat. Robert Smith)
- The Valley of the Pagans (feat. Beck)
- The Lost Chord (feat. Leee John)
- Pac-Man (feat. ScHoolboy Q)
- Chalk Tablet Towers (feat. St Vincent)
- The Pink Phantom (feat. Elton John & 6LACK)
- Aries (feat. Peter Hook & Georgia)
- Friday 13th (feat. Octavian)
- Dead Butterflies (feat. Roxani Arias)
- Désolé (feat. Fatoumata Diawara)
- Momentary Bliss (feat. slowthai & Slaves)
- Opium (Episode Bonus Track / Deluxe versions)
🎼 Musical Style & Genre Breakdown
The album is stylistically eclectic, reflecting Gorillaz’s core identity but pushing further into genre fusion:
- Alternative rock & Britpop (especially on “Strange Timez” and “The Pink Phantom”)
- Hip hop (ScHoolboy Q, slowthai collaborations)
- Electronic / synth-pop production
- Afrobeat and world music influences (notably “Désolé”)
- Post-punk / new wave (Peter Hook’s bass on “Aries”)
- Experimental pop structure via episodic releases
The project is defined less by genre cohesion and more by collaborative diversity, acting as a curated sonic network rather than a unified sound palette.
🎤 Album Credits & Production
Key production elements:
- Primary producers: Damon Albarn, James Ford, Remi Kabaka Jr.
- Executive concept: Gorillaz virtual band universe team
- Recorded across multiple global studios and remote sessions (many during COVID-era restrictions)
- Heavy use of digital collaboration due to remote recording constraints
- Visual direction tied to episodic animated releases on YouTube
The production model itself became part of the artistic statement—music created in isolation but connected digitally.
🌍 Fun Facts About the Album
- Each track was released as a standalone “episode” with its own animated short film.
- The project includes collaborations with artists from multiple generations, from Elton John to ScHoolboy Q.
- The title references “Strange Timez,” a nod to both cosmic imagery and the COVID-era global disruption.
- Some tracks were written and recorded remotely during lockdown conditions.
- The “Song Machine” concept was initially intended as an ongoing infinite content series.
📚 Trivia You Might Not Know
- “The Pink Phantom” features Elton John performing alongside a virtual animated version of himself inside the Gorillaz universe.
- The collaboration with Robert Smith bridges two iconic alternative worlds: Gorillaz and The Cure’s gothic soundscape.
- Peter Hook’s bass on “Aries” directly references his Joy Division/New Order playing style, making it a nostalgic sonic callback.
- The album’s structure inspired later artists to experiment with “single-by-single album building” strategies.
🤯 Did You Know?
- The “Song Machine” concept was originally imagined as a never-ending release format rather than a fixed album cycle.
- Some visuals were designed before the music was fully completed, reversing traditional album production flow.
- The project is considered one of the earliest mainstream examples of a fully “digital-native collaborative album series.”
- Despite being labeled Season One, a follow-up “season” has been repeatedly teased but not formally released as a standard album.
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