Gorillaz and Beck go on a joyride in the music video for the new Gorillaz song ‘The Valley of the Pagans’. The video is set in the famous ‘Vinewood’ from Grand Theft Auto V.
The video sees Noodle from Gorillaz drive in a black mustang type vehicle. Noodle cruises through Vinewood, breaking every road law possible and crashing into vehicles regularly. The rest of the band sit in the car, as 2-D sings with Beck over the phone.
You can watch the video below.
Grand Theft Auto V was released in 2013. As of August 2020, the game has sold more than 135 million copies across all platforms. It has made more than 6 billion dollars in profit, making it one of the most successful entertainment products of all time.
Throughout the video, using the iFruit phone from the game, Beck facetimes the band and sings his part for the song. The footage looks like it was recorded on FaceTime and put it into the phone that users have in the game.
The level of detail that has gone into the video is of the highest quality. The time on Beck’s phone matches up with the time of day in the video. As the clock hits 4:20 on the phone, Beck sings his line “it’s time to party“.
Towards the end of the video, the Gorillaz reach the famous six star wanted level and a police chase follows. As the band drives down ‘Santa Maria’ beach, the band travel through a wormhole and end up outside ‘Plastic Beach’. This is a nod to Gorillaz’ 2010 album. Frontman Damon Albarn has hinted in interviews that a sequel to that album could be in the pipeline.
‘The Valley of the Pagans’ is the latest release from Gorillaz’ new album, ‘Strange Timez’. It was released as part of season 1 of their Song Machine series. Throughout the year, the band have been releasing videos as episodes along with new music. This is not the first video game to feature ‘The Valley of the Pagans’ as it was performed in ‘Animal Talk’, the talk show for the game ‘Animal Crossing’. Check it out here.
The second series will include an animated Gorillaz movie according to Albarn. “We are supposed to be making a film while we’re doing season two (of ‘Song Machine’). We signed contracts, we’ve begun scripts and stuff. Making an animated film that’s kind of abstract is quite a big risk for a movie studio because they’re very expensive.”
Albarn went on to add “If you’re telling a slightly obtuse, weird story that only sometimes makes any sense, it’s quite difficult. That’s what we’ve discovered. But we will do it, we are doing it. I see a lot of people doing animated videos these days but I don’t think they really touch the quality of ours. We’re more in the world of Studio Ghibli.”
The band have announced a special live stream concert to celebrate the new album. A European tour has also been penned in for summer 2021. You can find all the information about the live stream show and European tour in Radio Nova’s report here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez4Lwt5-ZM0
