Gorillaz - “Empire Ants” (ft. Little Dragon)
Maybe I’m easily amused, but I still get chills every time this song shifts at the half way mark, when the disco keys fade in and the angular funk beat drops. In a way, the binary construction of “Empire Ants” represents an inverse of the album’s title and theme. The first half is the ‘beach,’ with Damon Albarn extolling the virtues of warm sunlight amid lazy guitar strums and a gently gurgling drum machine. It’s all balmy and humid, with sounds fizzling in the distance like a thin mirage. The second half would of course be the ‘plastic’ part. Gorillaz have always had a heavy streak of futurism and it’s always been bleak and dystopian, but never has it been presented as something immediate and sympathetic. Little Dragon deserve a lot of credit for it, especially Yukimi Nagano and her crestfallen voice, but the essential beauty of the song is tied to the juxtaposition. It might seem obvious, but hearing the same idea expressed through opposite styles in the same song turns out to be pretty breathtaking.
