"The Valley of the Pagans" is a song by British virtual band

Gorillaz Gorillaz are an English virtual band formed in 1998 by musician Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, from London. The band primarily consists of four fictional members: 2-D (vocals, keyboards), Murdoc Niccals (bass guitar), Noodle (guitar, ...

featuring

Beck Beck David Hansen (born Bek David Campbell; July 8, 1970) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He rose to fame in the early 1990s with his Experimental music, experimental and Lo-fi music, lo-fi style, and became ...

. The track was released on 5 November 2020 as the ninth and final single for Gorillaz' seventh studio album, '' Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez'', and the eighth episode of the ''

Song Machine ''Song Machine'' is an audiovisual project by British virtual band Gorillaz. It is a music video web series consisting of a collection of music videos and singles that are released monthly by the band as episodes of the series, with each episod ...

'' project, a web series which involves the ongoing release of various Gorillaz tracks featuring different guest musicians over the course of 2020.

Background

The demo version of the song, titled "West Hollywood", was leaked on 2 August 2020. It was recorded at

Damon Albarn Damon Albarn (; born 23 March 1968) is an English-Icelandic musician, singer-songwriter and composer, best known as the frontman and primary lyricist of the rock band Blur and as the co-creator and primary musical contributor of the virtual ...

's home studio in

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

, England in 2020 during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

Music video

The video, directed by

Jamie Hewlett Jamie Christopher Hewlett (born 3 April 1968) is an English comic book creator, illustrator, music video director, and songwriter. He is the co-creator of the comic book ''Tank Girl'' with Alan Martin and co-creator of the virtual band Gorilla ...

, Tim McCourt, and Max Taylor, opens up in the Kong Studios garage where

Noodle Noodles are a type of food made from unleavened dough which is either rolled flat and cut, stretched, or extruded, into long strips or strings. Noodles are a staple food in many cultures (for example, Chinese noodles, Filipino noodles, Indo ...

is driving a similar car from the " Stylo" music video, but a portal opens up behind them and Noodle backs up into it. The portal transports the band into ''

Grand Theft Auto V ''Grand Theft Auto V'' is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the seventh main entry in the Grand Theft Auto, ''Grand Theft Auto'' series, following 2008's ''Grand Theft Auto IV'', and ...

'' where Noodle speeds down various streets in the game.

appears in a smartphone seen on the bottom right of the screen and 2-D is shown talking to him in the back seat of the car. The video ends with the band driving through another portal that sends the car crashing into the ocean at

Point Nemo A pole of inaccessibility with respect to a geographical criterion of inaccessibility marks a location that is the most challenging to reach according to that criterion. Often it refers to the most distant point from the coastline, implying a m ...

, where

Plastic Beach ''Plastic Beach'' is the third studio album by British virtual band Gorillaz. It was released on 3 March 2010 by Parlophone internationally and by Virgin Records in the United States. Conceived from an unfinished project called ''Carousel'', th ...

remains. The music video on the band's

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

page was taken down five days after it premiered. An alternative version of the video without the ''Grand Theft Auto V'' footage was uploaded in its place on 9 March 2021.

Track listing

Personnel

Gorillaz *

– vocals, instrumentation, director, keyboards, bass, guitar, drum programming *

– artwork, character design, video direction *

Remi Kabaka Jr. Remi Kabaka Jr. (born 11 April 1970) is a British record producer, art director, percussionist and voice actor best known as the drummer and producer for British virtual band Gorillaz. He became a music producer for the band in 2015 after sever ...

– drum programming Additional musicians and personnel *

– vocals * Rudy Albarn – drums, percussion * David Greenbaum – engineering * Dylan Herman – engineering * Stephen Sedgwick – mixing engineer, engineering * Samuel Egglenton – engineering * John Davis – mastering engineer

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Valley of the Pagans 2020 songs 2020 singles Gorillaz songs Beck songs Funk rock songs British disco songs Songs written by Damon Albarn Songs written by Remi Kabaka Jr. Songs written by Beck Parlophone singles Warner Records singles Song Machine