I wish I could describe the excitement I had when I discovered the Gorillaz in 2001. I walked Switched on CDs and the shop owner Glen mentioned to me that a cartoon album was about to drop featuring Damon Albarn as a vocalist.

I had taken a really strong liking to a lot of later Blur stuff so I was intrigued to hear what his post Blur stuff would sound like.

I never expected however to hear the style hoppy goodness that turned out to be the Gorillaz. It was everything that I ever wanted in "virtual band". They leveraged the available technology and mediums to the extremes at a time where everything was blurry.

This album is nearly 15 years old and I'm having a hard time trying to remember - how I became obsessed with the band. I'm pretty sure that I spent a lot of time on the net visiting websites... I just double checked the album and confirmed that it was an "enhanced CD". For a brief period of time, a lot of albums came with multimedia you could drag and drop onto your computer.

My computer at the time wasn't particularly good, so I never bothered seeing the extended content. I now have a better computer, but I wonder if the multimedia is obsolete.

Hmmm... a potential weekend project. Go thru my stack of CD's and find examples of multimedia material from albums I own.

Stand out tracks:

Artists: Gorillaz
Album: Gorillaz
Producer: Tom Girling, Jason Cox, Dan the Automator, Gorillaz
Label: Parlophone, Virgin, Warner Bros.
Recorded: Studio 13, Geejam Studios

Today's album of the day entry is a little special because it also happens to fall on my Mom's birthday. While driving into the office today, I thought long and hard about albums that we both like and it occurred to me that we didn't really have a lot of those in common.

We did however have one musical artist in common, the Beatles. She prefers their earlier work, while I prefer their later stuff... I think the line in the sand is Rubber Soul. I do however have a very soft spot for the album Help! tho'.

It's my favorite "early" Beatles album and if you ever get to hear the song "Help!" through a pair of earphones you'll instantly become a believer in all things George Martin.

There's truly nothing new I can say about the album Help! that hasn't already been said before... and that's kinda nice for a change. I do however a short story to share regarding my copy of the album.

In my 20's, I knew I needed to add the Beatles discography to my collection, but I didn't know if I should add them in on CD or Vinyl. I settled on CD, but before I made my purchase - I ran across a strange set of imports. I picked them up at Switched on CD's in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Glen (owner of the store) informed me that they were imported from Russia... which makes sense, the album has all kinds of Russian writing on the back of the CD.

Glen told me that if you want to sell an album in Russia, you have to press the album in Russia... I figured if I was going to have the albums, should get them from the USSR.

Stand out Tracks: