The Fall (Gorillaz album)

The Fall is the fourth studio album by British virtual band Gorillaz. The album was officially announced on 20 December 2010 and soon after released on 25 December 2010 as a "free" download on the Gorillaz website, exclusively to fans in the band's Sub-Division fan club. The album features fewer guest artists than previous Gorillaz albums; collaborators include Mick Jones and Paul Simonon of The Clash and Bobby Womack. The "Phoner to Arizona" music video, a compilation of footage and images taken from the tour and the phase, was posted on YouTube on 22 December as a way to promote the album. The album was physically released on 18 April 2011.

Recording
The entire album was recorded on group co-founder Damon Albarn's iPad during the American leg of the Escape to Plastic Beach World Tour in October 2010 and mixed in England by Stephen Sedgwick. Albarn said of the recording: "I literally made it on the road. I didn't write it before, I didn't prepare it. I just did it day by day as a kind of diary of my experience in America. If I left it until the New Year to release it then the cynics out there would say, 'Oh well, it's been tampered with', but if I put it out now they'd know that I haven't done anything because I've been on tour ever since."

Gorillaz fictional lead vocalist 2D stated on episode 5 of the Pirate Radio broadcasts on the band's website that he wrote "Revolving Doors" after he saw a set of revolving doors in a hotel and it reminded him of how far he was from home and how out of place he was.

Apps used
As adapted from the Gorillaz website.

Speak It! Text to Speech / SoundyThingie / Mugician / Sylo Synthesiser, Sylo Synthesiser Pro / Synth / FunkBox Drum Machine / gliss / AmpliTube for iPad / XENON Groove Synthesizer / Korg iElecribe / bs-16i / Mellotronics M3000 for iPad / Cleartune – Chromatic Tuner / iORGEL HD / olsynth / StudioMini XL Recording Studio / Bassline / Harmonizer / Dub Siren Pro / Moog Filtatron

Reception
The Fall received mixed to positive reviews from most music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 67, based on 25 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".

While many people felt the album lacked the feel of previous offerings, the album was praised for its unique qualities and experimental nature. It did not receive the fame of previous albums but was rather treated as a pet project that resulted from the group's prior North American tour. The album used the iPad to create additional features to the tracks. Other instruments featured on the album include Korg Vocoder, Ukulele, microKORG, Omnichord, Minimoog Voyager, Melodica, Guitar, Piano and Korg Monotron.

Collaborations
Previous Gorillaz albums featured large numbers of guests. Their previous album Plastic Beach has guests on 13 of the 16 tracks with multiple guests per track, totalling more guest artists than tracks. The Fall includes only four guest artists. Three of these four have worked with Damon Albarn before. Mick Jones and Bobby Womack appeared on Plastic Beach, as did Paul Simonon, who also worked on Albarn's project The Good, the Bad & the Queen. American singer-songwriter Pharrell Williams of N*E*R*D also recorded a track with Albarn while touring together, but his track does not appear on the album.

Track listing
Notes
 * Additional keyboards on track 6 by Jesse Hackett.
 * Qanun on track 12 by James R Grippo.

Sample credits
 * "The Parish of Space Dust" contains samples of "Cowboy Town" as written by Ronnie Dunn, Larry Boone and Paul Nelson and performed by Brooks and Dunn, "Wichita Lineman", as written by Jimmy Webb and performed by Glen Campbell, and "Hawaiian War Chant (Ta-Hu-Wa-Hu-Wai)" as written by Prince Leleiohoku and performed by Spike Jones.
 * "Seattle Yodel" features the Yodelling Pickle, made by the novelty retailer Archie McPhee.