Monkey: Journey to the West (Audio CD)

could try harder Well, there is no doubt Monkey at the Royal Opera House was one of the events of summer 08 in London and I went and was certainly entertained. As a spectacle I think the whole thing came together and there should have been a DVD. Many would like to have seen this who didn't get an opportunity - rather exclusive compared to Gorillaz. So, the music. Does it stand up? Just about. Unlike Gorillaz and Good, Bad Queen you can really hear the joins in this. It's not the production, which is quite masterful. There's electronica, choirs singing in large spaces, brass, trad Chinese instruments etc. all vying for a place in the mix and I feel this works. You could use this CD to show off your hifi for sure. But I hear all the joins in the musical composition (sorry Damon!): there are vocal melodies directly parallel to what you hear on Good, Bad, Queen (Albarn trademark or DNA I guess); the 'chinese' melodies I feel are fairly standard - sort of thing you you hear on Buddhist chant records (where they add percussion and mellotron). There is LOTS of Michael Nyman style rhythm (which is why it won't sound like Gorillaz anywhere)- particularly with orchestral 'strings'. On one track (March of the iron army) this is added to a vocal reminiscent of the score for Nevsky - so if a Nyman/Prokoviev mash up is your thing...Basically, though I want to support the whole idea of this kind of production - there's only Damon Albarn doing all these really interesting projects and, dare I make the comparison with the Beatles, very few composers are able to imagine things that reach such a broad cross-section of the public - I like the idea of the blue rinse set listening to Good Bad Queen and buying art by the 'zombie flesh eaters'!

Monkey poo I am utterly gobsmacked at how RUBBISH this c.d. is. Damon and Hewette (dont care if name is spelled wrong as so annoyed) must of being in an induced state of stupidity to have released this tripe and fabricate it as music. I listened to each track with an ever growing disappointment, by the time I got to number 5 I had lost the will to insult my ears with this random noise any further and could only take a few seconds of each track on the rest of the album. If I had the power to telepathically shove this C.D. down Damon's throat I would but alas I cannot and will have to make do with returning the item.

I Liked the idea..... When I first heard Albarn and Hewlett were doing this project I was looking forward to the end result so when the album was released got it straight away. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't any good, but what I will say is I don't think it works as an album. For me I think it would work better with the visuals, the show. Some nice pieces of music on there, with little interludes inbetween the tracks which in places I wished went on to become songs only to find it fade of into something else! A great Idea though.....now Jamie Hewlett should do nice long animated version, with this as a soundtrack. Nice Idea, some nice music, doesn't work as an album.

STUNNING SHOW - AMAZING MUSIC. OPEN YOUR EARS AND YOUR MIND I was very lucky to see the spectacle that is Monkey's Journey To The West when it was premiered in Manchester in 2007. It's simply stunning and the music is amazing. OK maybe not for those expecting a slightly chinese influenced "ParkLife" or "Dare" but it shows just what a talent Albarn is...and that's from someone with all Oasis' albums! Do yourself a favour - see the show if you can but definitely buy this for an amazing aural experience. Post Beijing games, this should fly!

Monkey magic all over again! I loved the TV series Monkey! - The Complete Series, and because of this I have a good idea of what's going on in the music without having seen the stage opera it comes from. And I love this. The clash of traditional eastern and experimental western influences just has to be heard to be believed. Above anything else it is music for the imagination, and if you know what's going on then it really is a heavenly peach of a gift in both sound and the visuals you create around it. However, there are evidently a few Gorillaz [Explicit Lyrics] [Bonus Tracks] fans out there who don't have a clue what it's about and were obviously expecting something more along those lines, hence a few one-star ratings. Their point is a good one (I'm a Gorillaz fan too, and I sympathise with them to some extent), but if you have a good imagination and you know the story or the TV series, it is a must and - for you - it will not disappoint.