The Fall

The Fall is the fourth studio album by British virtual band Gorillaz. It was announced on 20 December 2010 and released as a download for members of the Gorillaz fan club on 25 December 2010. This was followed by a wider physical release of the album on 19 April 2011. Co-founder Damon Albarn recorded The Fall during the North American leg of the Escape to Plastic Beach Tour using an iPad and a few additional instruments. The album features fewer guest artists than previous Gorillaz albums; collaborators include Bobby Womack, and Mick Jones and Paul Simonon of The Clash. Critics praised the album's experimental qualities but felt that it lacked the feel of previous Gorillaz albums. It charted in various countries and peaked at number 24 on the Billboard 200. Recording The Fall was recorded on group co-founder Damon Albarn's iPad over 32 days during the North American leg of the Escape to Plastic Beach World Tour in October 2010 and mixed in England by Stephen Sedgwick. Other instruments that were used includes a qanun, a Korg vocoder, a ukulele, a microKORG, an Omnichord, a Minimoog Voyager, a melodica, a guitar, a piano and a Korg Monotron. Albarn said of the recording: "I literally made it on the road. I didn't write it before, I didn't prepare it. I just did it day by day as a kind of diary of my experience in America. If I left it until the New Year to release it then the cynics out there would say, 'Oh well, it's been tampered with', but if I put it out now they'd know that I haven't done anything because I've been on tour ever since." The album includes four guest artists, three of which have worked with Albarn before. Mick Jones and Bobby Womack appeared on the previous Gorillaz album Plastic Beach, as did Paul Simonon, who also worked on Albarn's project The Good, the Bad & the Queen. American singer-songwriter Pharrell Williams of N.E.R.D. recorded a track with Albarn while touring together which did not appear on the album.