When Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett first met in 1990, they didn't like each other. Hewlett was interviewing Albarn's band Blur. Hewlett was the creator of popular comic strip Tank Girl, and was doing the interview as a favour. And as Hewlett put it, he thought Albarn was “arsey” and “a bit of a wanker.”
But despite not getting along all that well, in 1997 they moved in together to West London flat. Both recuperating from the end of long term relationships, the pair sat on the couch together watching MTV into the early hours of the morning. And they were disgusted by what they saw. As Hewlett would go on to say
“If you watch MTV for too long, it's a bit like hell – there's nothing of substance there.”
The boy band explosion of the late 90s had just started, and every musical act seemed incredibly fake and manufactured to them. But the thought occurred to Albarn. “What if we made a manufactured band, but make it kind of interesting?”
The virtual band Gorillaz was born. And following a successful self titled album in 2001, they set out to prove it wasn't just a gimmick.
Hewlett said about the second album, "If you do it again, it's no longer a gimmick, and if it works then we've proved a point.”
And so, to prove a point, Albarn and Hewlett released Demon Days on the 11th of May, 2006. It has gone platinum in multiple countries, selling over 8 million copies world wide and it picked up a Grammy Award along the way.
But as it turns out Demon Days wasn't the only album released that week. Reigning WWE Champion John Cena released his debut and only album You Can't See Me the day prior, and inexplicably managed to sell over a million copies.
How do these two albums measure up 15 years later? How many pro wrestling references can I squeeze into an episode? And which of these two artists are more two-dimensional?
Let's find out. Welcome to When Albums Collide.