Of course, not everyone in the band bit the bullet at the end of the promotional cycle for their last album, 2005’s massive Demon Days — just guitarist Noodle, who perished at the conclusion of the band’s “El Mañana” video (she’s since returned in cyborg form), but there was a definite sense that things were winding down in ‘Rillaz land, with co-creators Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett even telling MTV News that the group was “retiring … we’re going to do it hip-hop style, like Jay-Z.”

But, much like Jigga, that retirement didn’t stick, and the proof is Beach which hits stores on Tuesday (March 9). Much like everything the Gorillaz do, it’s a sprawling, kitchen-sink affair, with an orchestra’s worth of musicians and an army of guest vocalists taking part in things. There’s a whole lot to keep track of, which is why we’ve prepared this cheat sheet — a list of the who’s, what’s and where’s that make the album tick.

Humble Beginnings
After spending much of 2007 working on Monkey: Journey to the West, a Chinese-style opera that premiered at the Manchester International Festival, Albarn and Hewlett announced plans for a new Gorillaz album, tentatively called Carousel. That eventually morphed into Plastic Beach (Albarn reportedly got the inspiration for the album while sitting on the beach, noticing all the trash in the sand) and recording began in June 2008. In September of last year, Albarn premiered three brand-new tracks — “Electric Shock,” “Broken” and “Stylo” — on BBC Radio 1. In December, Gorillaz appeared on the U.K. cover of Wired magazine and in January their official site underwent a face-lift, making it clear that the Plastic Beach era had begun.

A Cast Of Hundreds
It wouldn’t be a Gorillaz production without more than a few co-stars, and Plastic Beach has ‘em by the bucketload. First single “Stylo” features vocals by Mos Def and Bobby Womack (not to mention Bruce Willis in the video), and the album features contributions from Snoop Dogg, Lou Reed, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon from the Clash, the Fall’s Mark E. Smith, British rappers Bashy and Kano, De La Soul and Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys, to name just a few. There are also musical flourishes provided by Chicago’s Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and the Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental and Arabic Music too.

Return To The Road
Gorillaz have performed live in the past — including a sold-out run of shows at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre and a Grammy duet with Madonna — but longtime plans of a worldwide holographic tour never materialized. But, this time around, things may be different — the band have already been confirmed as headliners at the 2010 Coachella Festival, and if Beach is a success, the lure of the open road may prove too much to resist.

Source:  MTV News

The 63-year-old rock icon last released a new album in 2003, and stopped touring in 2004 after suffering a heart attack during a European trek. The early Internet enthusiast has not even updated his official blog since October 2006, when he proudly revealed he would voice a character on the kids cartoon show “SpongeBob SquarePants.”

Last year, he attended a few red-carpet events to help promote his son Duncan Jones’ movie “Moon.” But otherwise the musical chameleon seems to be savoring his latest metamorphosis into married father of a 9-year-old daughter in New York.

“He’s just being Dad, I think, laying low,” said bass player Gail Ann Dorsey, who started working with Bowie almost 15 years ago. “I can’t imagine he’s not writing or doing something, but we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Dorsey said she e-mailed him a birthday greeting in January, but resisted the temptation to ask if he was working on any projects.

“I never pry into an artist’s life, or process either,” Dorsey said. “I don’t write to him and go, ‘What are you doing?’ Or call and go, ‘Why aren’t you playing?’ You let people be and you see where it falls.”

Bowie biographer Marc Spitz is slowly losing hope that the singer will make a comeback, even as peers such as Lou Reed and Iggy Pop keep recording and touring.

“CLOSE TO THE ABYSS”

His absence is all the more striking given that Bowie had released an album or single almost every year since 1964. It would be akin to the equally prolific Woody Allen stepping back from filmmaking, Spitz said.

He also noted that people are used to celebrities such as David Letterman and Robin Williams bouncing back after heart ailments, not to mention former Vice President Dick Cheney.

But given that Bowie often performed songs about death and the mysteries of life, Spitz said he might have lost his appetite after getting “that close to the abyss.”

He also interviewed people for his book, “Bowie: A Biography,” who told him: “Maybe he’s just done, maybe he’s said his piece,” Spitz recounted. “Some people don’t go forever and ever and ever, like the Rolling Stones.”

Bowie’s managers declined to comment on his current pursuits. The singer has long dabbled in film, painting and photography. Bowie and his second wife, Somali model Iman, are the parents of 9-year-old Lexi.

His 38-year-old son Duncan, formerly known as Zowie Bowie, kept the family in the news this past year with his sci-fi movie “Moon,” which recently won a British Academy Film Award.

While it’s entirely possible that Bowie is occupied with parent-teacher meetings and playing the house-husband role that John Lennon assumed for the last five years of his life, he has kept his representatives busy with archival projects.

EMI last year released a CD and DVD derived from his 1999 appearance on VH1’s “Storytellers,” as well as a bonus-packed 40th anniversary reissue of his “Space Oddity” album.

Universal is about to reissue his self-titled 1967 debut album, also with bonus tracks, and Columbia has just issued a live CD from a 2003 tour.

The latter release, “A Reality Tour,” is a double-disc set culled from a pair of shows in Dublin. A DVD version was released in 2004.

Still, Spitz is more interested in what Bowie has to say now. His last studio album, “Reality,” came out in July 2003, spending just four weeks on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart.

“His real value was how he synthesized the times and ran it through his psyche and then offered it back to us,” he said. “I’m not as interested in what he had to say in 1976 as what he thinks of the state of the now, because he is so sharp and his insight is so valuable.”

Source: Billboard