Humanz is the fifth studio album by British virtual band Gorillaz, released on 28 April 2017 by Parlophone in the United Kingdom and Warner Bros. Records in the United States. It was the band's first studio album released in seven years, following a multiyear hiatus. The album was produced by The Twilite Tone and Remi Kabaka Jr., with Kabaka Jr. making his first contribution as a permanent producer for the band.
Following media reports of a fall out between Gorillaz co-creators Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, Gorillaz entered a multiyear hiatus after the release of the 2012 non-album single "DoYaThing". During this time, Albarn released his debut solo record, Everyday Robots (2014), and recorded and toured with his band Blur, while Hewlett worked on film projects. Albarn and Hewlett reconciled and decided to return to Gorillaz in late 2014, with Albarn beginning to write songs for the album while still on the Everyday Robots tour. Recording officially began around September 2015 and continued through December 2016, taking place across various locations worldwide, including London, Paris, New York City and Jamaica.
The album features political themes, taking inspiration from the 2016 United States presidential election. Albarn has described the album as the soundtrack to "a party for the end of the world," envisioning a "dark fantasy" in which Republican candidate Donald Trump won the election, which was still considered a remote possibility at the time of recording. Musically, the album embraces an electronic "modern-sounding urban hip-hop/R&B sensibility", and features an expansive roster of guest artists, including Jehnny Beth, Grace Jones, Kali Uchis, Vince Staples, Popcaan, D.R.A.M., Anthony Hamilton, De La Soul, Danny Brown, Kelela, Mavis Staples, Pusha T, and Benjamin Clementine. Several songs from the album were released as singles, most notably lead single "Saturnz Barz" and "Strobelite". A "Super Deluxe" edition of the album was later released in November 2017, featuring an additional 14 tracks.
Humanz debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart and the US Billboard 200, and reached the top 10 in 23 countries. The album received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its energetic tone and political themes, though some criticized the abundance of guest artists, feeling it resulted in a bloated track list and a reduced presence from Albarn. The album was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards. It was supported by the Humanz Tour from 2017 to 2018, the band's longest tour to date at the time, during which Albarn began recording the band's follow up studio album The Now Now (2018).
Background After the release of their 2010 album The Fall, rumours began to circulate on the internet that Gorillaz creators Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett had fallen out, and that this had led to the band split; People subsequently reported this to be true. Representatives for the band denied the rumours in a statement to Pitchfork. Gorillaz released a single with James Murphy and André 3000 commissioned by Converse, titled "DoYaThing", on 23 February 2012. In April 2012, in an interview with The Guardian, Albarn stated that Gorillaz were "unlikely" to release new music, citing Hewlett's dissatisfaction that his animation had become less central to the band and their performances. In June 2013, Hewlett said that he "believe[s] there is a future for the Gorillaz. But Gorillaz is quite a complicated and expensive thing to produce. So, I think we need to wait a little bit to see what happens because usually in the music industry everything changes."
On 25 April 2014, Albarn released the solo album Everyday Robots. Hewlett revealed that he and Albarn decided to revive Gorillaz after Albarn had played a gig, stating: "...we were at a party afterwards. We'd had a bit to drink, and he said, 'Do you want to do another one?' And I said, 'Do you?' and he said, 'Do you?' And I said, 'Yeah, sure.' I started work on it straight away, learning to draw the characters again. I played around by myself for eight months while he was performing with Blur in 2015." In October 2014, Albarn was said to be "in the process of reactivating Gorillaz for a 2016 release." In an Instagram post on 30 January 2015, Hewlett posted new drawings of fictional band members Murdoc and Noodle. He also responded to a fan's query by stating, "Yes Gorillaz Returns." Albarn's band Blur released their eighth studio album The Magic Whip on 27 April 2015. Before Blur's tour in support of The Magic Whip, Albarn said, "I'm starting recording in September for a new Gorillaz record." On 19 January 2017, Gorillaz released the first track from the album, "Hallelujah Money" featuring Benjamin Clementine, accompanied by a music video as a non-commercial single on Uproxx's YouTube channel.
Recording Prior to studio recording, Albarn made use of iPad applications such as GarageBand to create the framework for each song. Albarn had previously utilised his iPad as an audio workstation for The Fall, touting its convenience over the 4-Track recorder he'd previously used for preliminary music production.
To guide collaborators into the "dark fantasy" setting that Albarn envisioned for Humanz, Albarn instructed guest artists to imagine a future in which Donald Trump had won the 2016 United States presidential election. As recording for Humanz began well before Trump had secured the Republican presidential nomination, much less the presidency, the possibility of a Trump presidency was still considered remote by many; collaborator Pusha T (who recorded his contribution in early 2016) later commented on Albarn's inadvertent foresight, saying: "I wrote from the perspective of this day, I was writing from the perspective of a Trump win. When this really happened, I was like 'Wait a minute, what type of crystal ball did this guy have? Why are you even asking me to think along these lines?' I don't think he thought that [Trump] would win, I'm not gonna go that far, but he definitely conceptualized this whole thing." In April 2016, Hewlett uploaded two video clips onto his Instagram showing the continued work on the album. The first clip featured Liam Bailey and the Twilite Tone. The second clip was a time-lapse video featuring Albarn, Remi Kabaka Jr, the Twilite Tone and Jean-Michel Jarre. On 17 May 2016, Gorillaz were in the studio with Chicago-based hip hop artist Vic Mensa, although Bailey and Mensa's contributions were ultimately left off of the finished album.
In an interview with Q magazine, Albarn revealed that he reached out to collaborate with a number of different artists, many of whom turned him down, including English musician Morrissey, Dionne Warwick – who was unwilling to collaborate as some lyrics on the record conflicted with her religious views, singer Sade, and American rapper Rick Ross. Albarn also revealed in an interview with Song Exploder, that the song "Andromeda", featured a more prominent role for rapper D.R.A.M and at one point, featured contributions from Rag'n'Bone Man (which was ultimately discarded) and with French singer-songwriter Christine and the Queens, which was also unsuccessful. The group also reportedly recorded with Erykah Badu, whom Albarn had previously worked with on his Rocket Juice & the Moon project. The song "Charger" with Grace Jones was a result of Jones singing over the song's instrumental for four hours, ad-libbing and vibing to it. Overwhelmed by the length of the vocals recorded, Albarn had his studio floor covered in cut up pieces of paper with everything Jones had recorded, finding the fragments that worked and eventually crafting the song from there. A photo of this was also uploaded to Kabaka's Instagram, with the album's other executive producer the Twilite Tone, attempting to place the lyrics in an order for the song. Albarn also revealed that an unnamed collaborator's original vocals were removed from the song, so as to accommodate Jones' vocals. Album recording engineer Stephen Sedgwick's final mix session of "Charger" contains 90 separate tracks.
"We Got the Power" features guest vocals from Jehnny Beth, the lead singer of the British rock band Savages, as well as backing vocals from American rapper D.R.A.M and English singer Noel Gallagher. Albarn welcomed the arrival of Beth as the album was meant to be "a series of conversations between men and women". He hailed her performance, saying: "She sounds like herself, but there are also strong echoes of Siouxsie Sioux. She's brilliant." The song is a particular landmark for Albarn and Gallagher, after their public dislike of each other during what was dubbed by the media as "The Battle of Britpop" in the 1990s. At one point, the song featured backing vocals from Albarn's Blur bandmate Graham Coxon, however his vocals were removed from the final version of the song. "At one point this song had Graham, Noel and me on it and it was sort of heading slightly in the wrong direction. It was becoming almost retro in its sort of spirit and way too rocky for this record so I kind of stripped it right back down again. We play it slightly different live than how it is on the record. It's sort of the song that comes on during the final titles of a film. The climax. I thought Jehnny would take a bit of the testosterone off", Albarn said in an interview with Radio X. He also spoke of working with Gallagher for the first time, which Albarn was very complimentary: "He's fantastic in the studio. It's nice when you see how someone goes about their business. He's great". The song itself started after Albarn was given a Casio MT-40 for his birthday and he began composing the barebones of a demo, which was later fleshed out to become "We Got the Power". The idea to include Jehnny Beth came about after XL Recordings founder Richard Russell said that Gallagher and Albarn "were two rich middle-aged men singing about having the power, which is not a good look". Beth wrote her own lyrics to be included on the song as well as the lyrics that Albarn and Gallagher had also written.
"Andromeda", the album's fourth single, was dedicated to Ethel, the mother of Albarn's longtime partner Suzi Winstanley, who died while Albarn was writing the song. Ethel's death reminded Albarn of Bobby Womack, who had appeared on the group's single "Stylo" and "Cloud of Unknowing" from their album Plastic Beach and appeared on the song "Bobby in Phoenix" from The Fall. Albarn and Russell had also produced Womack's comeback album The Bravest Man in the Universe, prior to Womack's death in June 2014. The sentimentality Albarn felt for lost family and friends was instrumental in the creation of "Andromeda", with Albarn commenting on the song's message: "Take the worst possible outcome, be brave, and remember all the goodness that preceded that... all the beauty that preceded that." Albarn also stated that after a conversation with producer the Twilite Tone, he tried to evoke the sound of Michael Jackson's 1983 single "Billie Jean" from his iconic Thriller album and Hall & Oates' single "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)", from their album Private Eyes. Twilite Tone produced the song, while Albarn took care of lyrics. The song features D.R.A.M, who originally had a more prominent feature on the song, with a full chorus and verse, however, Albarn stripped the vocals back as the song felt more complete. At one point, the song's name was "I Can't Go for Billie Jean", as a reference to the aforementioned Michael Jackson song and Hall and Oates' song.