A little bit about the track: Cracker Island has been an anticipated single since it debuted in April 2022 on the Gorillaz tour. A huge factor is that Thundercat is on this track: Gorillaz and Thundercat was wanted by many in the Gorillaz community for a while now, since Thundercat's style would fit Gorillaz like a glove. The single relates to a possible new phase "The Static Channel", which also debuted on the Gorillaz tour.
The song starts with a metronome - tempo of 120 BPM. It also starts with a synth which plays a few notes as it introduces 2D into the song, to which he sings "On Cracker Island it was born, to the collective of the dawn." At that point, it introduces a funky drum groove with a simple bass line which stands out with the rest of the song.
As 2D continues singing, a second synth comes into play and stands by the side of the first synth: a pulsing-like rhythm. Then, Thundercat makes his start with backing vocals that fit the song like a glove. His vocals give the song an extra ominous feeling to it: "Forever cult", which repeats 4 times before diving into other lyrics which match up with 2D singing about how people on Cracker Island decided to make a cult, to grow a "made-up paradise".
The chorus changes the bass and synth rhythms as 2D sings about how these people taught themselves how to be occult. The bass line gets extremely funky (to be expected of a song with Thundercat on it), and as 2D ends the chorus and Thundercat opens the bridge, a guitar starts to play a basic rhythm in the background to compliment the other sounds. After the bridge, we get to hear more sounds, like maracas and such, with new synth sounds and ad-libs.
The second chorus isn't as action packed as the first, but has great Thundercat backing singing and lyrics, and is chill without an overload of sounds. The third chorus matches with the other two, and has singing about the collective of the sky. It doesn't hold any new sounds, which is nice to end the song on that note. And then 2D ends the song with his singing "And in the end I had to pay" and "Nothing more to say", which I think is perfect for the song's ending theme.
The song for me is a 4-4.5/5, but I think this will definitely grow on me as I listen many times more, so I will give it a 4.5 and highly recommend it to any Gorillaz fan who is looking for some new, fresh sounding Gorillaz music.
Bump |
