Plastic Beach

Plastic Beach is the third studio album by British virtual band Gorillaz. It was released on 3 March 2010 by Parlophone internationally and by Virgin Records in the United States. Conceived from an unfinished project called Carousel, the album was recorded from June 2008 to November 2009, and was produced primarily by group co-creator Damon Albarn. It features guest appearances by such artists as Snoop Dogg, Gruff Rhys, De La Soul, Bobby Womack, Mos Def, Lou Reed, Mark E. Smith, Bashy, Kano and Little Dragon. Plastic Beach received mostly positive reviews, and was later named one of the decade's best albums by several critics. In 2020, the album was ranked at 71 on the 100 Best Albums of the Century list by Stacker. The album debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart, selling approximately 74,432 copies in its first week. It debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 with 112,000 copies sold in its first week; overall it reached the top 10 in 22 countries in total. Background Carousel The creators of Gorillaz, musician Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, began working on a new Gorillaz project in November 2007 called Carousel, which evolved into Plastic Beach, the group's third studio album. In the November 2007 issue of Q, when asked what his top priority for 2008 was, Damon Albarn replied "Well, I'm doing the next Gorillaz thing, but it won't be called Gorillaz." In the February 2008 Gorillaz-Unofficial interview, Hewlett elaborated on this, saying "I think the idea behind it is that it's like how the Who presented their movies – Tommy and Quadrophenia and so on. Those were presented as by 'the Who' even though none of the members of the band were in the movies. I don't think anyone from the Who was in Quadrophenia. But it's the same people working on it, that's the principle." In a July 2008 interview with The Observer he also said, "Gorillaz now to us is not like four animated characters any more – it's more like an organisation of people doing new projects ... That's my ideal model – Gorillaz is a group of people who gave you this, and now want to give you new stuff."