"Modern Life Is Rubbish"
"We Are Happy Landfill" is a track soaked in anger and powerful instrumentation that was first released as a sort of bonus track on the deluxe edition of "Demon Days". If you put the DVD in your computer and went to the band's then website, Kong Studios, you would be able to find the downloadable track in a locked drawer in the first floor kitchen.
"We Are Happy Landfill" was supposed to play a major part in the band's second album originally. It's instrumental was teased everywhere on the band's then website and the album was at one point going to called "We Are Happy Landfill" after they decided to not use the "Reject False Icons" concept. You can hear the social commentary and dark atmosphere on this song that became a huge part of the finished product. But if it were included it would have made the album's storyline very different than the album we got.
The song opens with a riff echoed between five instruments: a melodica, a harmonica, a Jew's harp, a pan pipe (a kind of flute) and an African atenteben (another kind of flute). As this riff plays, you can hear the sound of gears and cranks being turned giving the song a carnival type atmosphere. Soon James Dring's drums kick in and the five instruments all play the riff together forming the sound of a brass section gone to hell. Damon then plays a distorted electric guitar riff which is doubled by Jason Cox's steady bass guitar. Synths stir up cacophonous noises in the background. This in combination with the vocal sets the tone for a much harsher apocalypse then anything Damon wrote about on the album. No, instead of a world trapped in fear and paranoia, this is world that's completely destroyed in "Mad Max" style chaos.
Now, let's talk about the vocals on this track, because this may be the most ferocious and pissed off Damon has ever sounded on record. He's not even singing in a usual 2D voice, this is a fed up yelp that combines the angry sneers summoned by punks like Johnny Rotten and Joe Strummer with the harsh soulful cries of James Brown. He begins the vocal with a loud and powerful scream and proceeds to tear down society in a much more brutal way than he did on "Demon Days". If 2D was looking for answers and pureness in society on the album, the 2D on this track has completely given up on everything around him. He brings shame on to everything and everyone; taking drugs ("their only attire is a typical vice"), conforming ("so follow the lines till they cut out your eyes, you won't be even seeing if you ain't growing lies"), and of course, the power manufactured media has over consumers ("They've bought all the shit that should never be sold. They put a gun above it and a narrow behold"). He ends every verse as well as the song by chanting one line over and over again, "we are happy landfill". We have brought this madness all on to ourselves, it is our fault all this garbage (or "landfill") is around today in our government and media therefore we are a part of this "landfill" that plagues the world. As 2D disowns the world, the instrumental suddenly stops leaving us only with the riff the five instruments were playing. The cranks slowly turn the track as if they are the ones causing the track to fade out, the carnival act 2D played ringleader to is done leaving those who witnessed it with something to contemplate.
"We Are Happy Landfill" was of course, released as a physical copy on the album "D-Sides". "D-Sides" in a way serves as a second part to the "Demon Days" as many of the tracks were heavily considered for usage in the album's many stages of development (see "RockIt" entry for more details). In other words, "D-Sides" is the album we would have got if Damon hadn't decided to instead make an album that was almost completely about the horrible political atmosphere going on in America at the time. "We Are Happy Landfill" is the most fed up Damon has sounded on record and serves as a great and important part of the Gorillaz discography, along with the rest of "D-Sides".
No comments:
Post a Comment