About Cracker Island by Gorillaz Album
Cracker Island is the eighth studio album by Gorillaz, released February 24, 2023 following the release of their 2021 EP Meanwhile; the 20th Anniversary Edition of Gorillaz, released in 2021; and their 2020 album Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez. It features collaborations with Stevie Nicks, Adeleye Omotayo, Thundercat, Tame Impala, Bad Bunny, Bootie Brown and Beck. A deluxe edition was released on 27 February with five additional tracks featuring the artists De La Soul, MC Bin Laden, Del the Funky Homosapien and Dawn Penn. The album was first brought up as a second season to their multi-media project Song Machine on October 18, 2020, less than a week before the first season’s release as "Strange Timez". In an interview conducted by Gorillaz Unofficial, Jamie would reveal that the project following "Song Machine" would take on a narrative-heavy structure, describing it as a “more in-depth kinda epic story with the characters and music. Not just an album, but bigger.” Cracker Island was later brought up by Damon Albarn in a September 2021 interview with Latin-American publication Remezcla, stating that he and Reggaeton musician Bad Bunny had made a new song specifically for a project influenced by Latin America to be released as the first single for the album in 2022. In April 2022 with the start of their “World Tour 2022” tour in Montevideo, two new songs ("Silent Running" and "Cracker Island") would be debuted live with visuals that showcased a new art style and a short promotional video for a new phase dubbed "The Static Channel". The title track “Cracker Island” featuring Thundercat would later be released as the album’s lead single on June 22, 2022.
