Gorillaz post their best first week sales and are already planning their next album

May 11, 2017

The Gorillaz have had quite a busy 2017 thus far, but their hard work has paid off as the cartoon group has posted their best first week record sales to date.

Rounding out the debut week of their fifth album Humanz, the Gorillaz boistered 140,000 in equivalent units and 115,000 in straight sales (via Billboard). This landed them at the number two spot on the Billboard's Top 200, falling in just behind Kendrick Lamar's seminal record Damn.

These are the best numbers for the group, topping their 2010 effort Plastic Beach by nearly 30,000. And although they haven't seen much radio or Hot 100 success on their latest release, the Gorillaz still maintained to get 14 songs onto the Rock Songs chart thanks to their high volume of sales and streams.

But Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlitt are far from done—in a new interview done with Channel 4 news, the duo revealed that they already have an idea for their next record. Watch the full interview below.

Considering there was such a long gap in between Humanz and their previous album (six years to be exact), Albarn stated that he believed the time helped cultivate the future of the Gorillaz.

“It’s served us well having these big gaps [between albums] because, in the interim, the technology does move forward. And the whole thing about Gorillaz is that cutting edge between music and technology. That’s driven the whole thing and made it different,” Albarn said.

However Hewlitt hinted that the time in between Humanz and their next album may not be very long. All it takes is the idea, he noted.

“There has to be a gap between the albums because they’re quite exhausting. They take a lot of work. But we’re already talking about the next album, so there might not be a gap this time… It starts with one idea. Like, there’s a conversation one night, you have one idea a sentence, and that is the basis for a whole album. And then we never talk again until it’s finished. And we had that one idea again the other night. So we have to get started on the next one. Not today, maybe tomorrow.”

When further pressed on what idea Albarn and Hewlitt have already concocted, Albarn laughed and claimed, “It’s so ahead of its time, you wouldn’t be able to understand it.” (via NME)

You have to admire how hard these guys work to make the Gorillaz—with all their virtual creations and promotions—a reality.