Plastic Beach.

I've often found that my favorite music often required me to adjust to it to fully appreciate it. From Queens of The Stone Age, to The Beatles, to MF DOOM, they all made me reevaluate what it meant to be good music. When one pushes the envelope in their respective field, they often  introduce new sounds and techniques, things you've never heard before. You have to listen to it, understand it, almost study it in your head, until it clicks, and then you go, "Fuck. This is great." That's what Plastic Beach was, to me.
Gorillaz music has always been strange by conventional standards. They mix and meld genres quite easily, and in such a way that you barely recognize the individual parts, only the incredible stew, I suppose, of sounds and harmonies. Their songs have always been beautiful, in a dark, almost macabre sense. Plastic Beach isn't like that, though.



 It's a pop album, through and through, with pretty synths ripped straight from your favorite 80's pop song. But it's even greater than that. It's almost an overload of melodies, deceptively upbeat songs, but none of it feels overdone. It's just right. Just the right amount of fluff, mixed with ominous overtones that once again destroy conventions and introduce new grounds in music.
Damon Albarn's vaporous yet commanding voice hovers over each track, at times in a full on howl, but usually a soft croon, and it compliments the instrumentation, the true star of the album, tremendously. I don't know what else to say. It's just the perfect album, save for one track, "Some Kind of Nature" featuring Lou Reed, who's gravely monotone ruins an otherwise great tune. It's an album for the ages.