Hallelujah Money

Gorillaz are back – and this time they are as political as they are whacky. Having teased a new album through Instagram and SoundCloud releases over the past few months, Gorillaz released the brand new track Hallelujah Money (ft. Benjamin Clementine) on the eve of Trump’s inauguration. The Damon Albarn-led virtual band described the track in their own words as a “commentary on a politically-charged, historical moment”.

The track itself heavily features the deep, powerful voice of Clementine, which dominates the track with an omnipotent, commanding aura. The lyrical parts sung by Clementine imitate the voice of Trump with eery lines such as “Thank you my friend/for trusting me” and the sobering “It is love, that is the root of all evil”. Further to this, the music video and lyrics are littered with references to current affairs with the imagery of “scarecrows from the far east” and “I thought the best way to perfect our tree / Is by building walls”. This is all underscored with the most standout trait of the song – a hypnotic underlying beat, marked by an arrhythmic beeping which persists throughout the whole track like an incurable sickness.

The verse builds up into an exhausting chorus calling for “hallelujah money”, which is backed by an innocent sounding choir, contrasting Clementine’s deep vocals. The resounding message of the track follows succinctly with Albarn’s melancholic vocals which question how we can know “we are still human” in this new era of politics. Albarn’s speaker-tronic voice also humbly asks “How we will dream?” and “How we will love?” in this new system.

Artistically, the face of Gorillaz is still recognisable since their last commercial outing in 2010. Interestingly, this is not a marked official Gorillaz release - the song is not a single and can only be found on the YouTube channel of culture site uproxx.com. The song comes with an accompanying music video, which is nowhere to be seen on the recently revamped Gorillaz website, suggesting the piece is not something from the body of work of the upcoming album. Although rather half-handed in the nature of it’s release, Hallelujah Money is an excellent piece of work, teeming with signature Gorillaz quirks. Whilst the track offers loads in itself, it’s only one side of the coin, with the accompanying music video providing thought-provoking visuals on top. Whilst Hallelujah Money is intentionally separate from the upcoming album, if it were considered a sign of the music to come, it wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.