March 9th, 2010 8:10am
All We Are Is Dust
Gorillaz featuring Lou Reed “Some Kind of Nature”
Plastic Beach is an album about junk, but it somehow avoids being shrill, judgmental, or dogmatic. It’s mostly colorful and groovy, with an undercurrent of melancholy and dissatisfaction cutting through the bounce of the beats. “Some Kind of Nature” contrasts the old crank voice of Lou Reed with an especially perky track, but here’s the great part: Reed comes across like a slightly weird guy making sense of a world overflowing with garbage and spiritual bullshit, drawing connections between things and finding the joy in absurdity, while Damon Albarn is the one sounding sad-eyed and world-weary. Reed isn’t exactly playing against type, but it’s a brilliant aspect of his style and persona for this context. It’s halfway between a “fuck it” shrug and a kook imparting incoherent wisdom.
Buy it from Amazon.
3/9/10 6:01 pm
I feel like I can really hear Lou Reed’s dentures in this…kind of ruins the rock n roll persona for me.
3/10/10 2:31 pm
Interesting footnote: Lou Reed once cut a pretty rappy track about consumer waste/recycling called “Original Wrapper.” I only know of it because my Biology teacher in 8th Grade appeared in the music video and would occasionally play the video in class for his students.
3/10/10 5:27 pm
Actually, I found this song is not about garbage as some are on the album. It’s more about human nature, what we are made of, some kind of mixture, some kind of gold, some kind of soul… in the end all we are is dust, but we try to avoid that truth wrapping ourself in plastic and phony clothes.
3/10/10 9:03 pm
I think that’s right on, but it’s kind of a broader meaning of plastic and junk, etc. I think the theme is about how artificiality has become part of nature, part of the landscape. Physically, ecologically, spiritually, etc.