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The brainchild of Blur frontman Damon Albarn and artist/illustrator Jamie Hewlett, the fictitious band Gorillaz were quite a unique concept when first introduced to the world via 2001’s Clint Eastwood. Today, in a world dominated by virtual artists and AI-generated tracks, the overtly non-existent conceit of the group now feels highly prophetic.
What clearly wasn’t virtual was the band’s music, which was painstakingly created with a variety of real human creative contributors, spawning a wide array of brilliance across the band’s impressive and diverse discography.
The pseudo-anonymity of Gorillaz has allowed Albarn to explore music avenues previously denied to him, blurring himself and his collaborators amid the project’s animated protagonists, 2-D, Murdoc Niccals, Russel Hobbs and Noodle.
It was 2005’s second album Demon Days that really pushed Gorillaz outside of the realm of quirky Albarn side-project and into being a household name.
When the incredibly infectious first single from the album, Feel Good Inc, dropped, it was obvious that the band’s production and arranging game had been significantly stepped up, thanks in part to the contributions of artist and producer Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse.
Albarn had heard Danger Mouse’s iconic Grey Album and was entranced. As we noted in our lengthy song story last year, the pair hit it off during a phone conversation which led to an invitation to hook-up and try out a few tracks.
Working at Gorillaz’ Kong Studios and 13 in Essex and London respectively, the free-flowing sessions led to the ebullient tone of Feel Good Inc. “I didn’t think that many people were going to get it. Given the way radio formats are set up in the States, I didn’t see any one song that could really fit in anywhere, and that always hurts a major label release,” Danger Mouse stated.
But Feel Good Inc. would end up clearly being a song that worked extremely well, hitting the top 10 in 16 countries (it reached #2 in the UK) and entering the regular rotation of radio stations and clubs across the world.
There’s a reason that Feel Good Inc. has stuck around, and that’s largely down to its arrangement.
In a virtual interview with MTV News in 2006, Albarn explained (via his band avatars) that he realised the song would be a standout from the beginning of the process. “I saw it’s potential from the very first beat,” Albarn said through the guise of virtual basist Murdoc. “It was like, panning for gold. Amongst the brown murky waters, I saw this track all shiny and glimmery, shining like a big rock of gold. It said, ‘Play me, play me!’ and that, I knew soon as the De La Soul boys dropped their glorious rap about Motowns and ghost towns. This one was gonna explode.”
In an interview with Ultimate-Guitar.com, Damon mentioned that the band used one of Danger Mouse’s drum machines in the production of the song. Closer scrutiny reveals a heavily gated sound, which also has the attributes of a low sampling rate.
Danger Mouse is a well-known user of the legendary EMU SP-1200; a classic sampling drum machine, with a maximum bit-depth of 12bit, so it’s a fairly safe bet that this is the machine behind the track.
One of the hookiest elements of the song is undoubtedly the downright incredible bass line. This 4-bar part runs throughout the introduction and verse sections.
At first listen, it sounds as though the bass part is doubled by a guitar part, one octave higher. This is a throwback to a classic arranging feature, which was made popular by composers such as Henry Mancini. It’s been cited by many artists in their own work, including bands such as Steely Dan.
However, a closer listen reveals that rather than a doubled guitar part, the bass part seems to have an octave pitch shifting effect applied, with the effected part an octave lower than the upper original part.
There are a few other clues, such as the accuracy of some of the articulation and slides across parts, as well as a subtle and small amount of latency (at least to our ears), between the upper and lower parts.
While we are on the subject of this inescapable riff, we have to consider its key and overall tonality – which is not as easy as you might think.
The song itself is rooted in Eb minor, which is a strange key for a guitar-based song, given that the lowest note on a regular guitar and 4-string bass is an E natural.
Before addressing the chords themselves, we have to consider the upper guitar parts, as used in the verse structure. This is another curious element, as there are degrees of de-tuning littered in a number of places, particularly within a couple of the guitar parts.
The first guitar part is the most obvious, picking out 6ths above the bass riff, but a second guitar part appears further into the verse, which also adopts some interesting tuning.
As we previously mentioned, the song is rooted in Eb minor, but the picked ‘6th’ guitar part suggests the use of the note G, instead of Gb.
This is pivotal, being the third of a chord of Eb/Ebm, so this singular note switches the song from a major to a minor tonality. Whether accidental or intentional, it promotes a sense of ambiguity in the harmony, in line with the song’s thematic sense of doubt.
Working with the bass and guitar parts, we can suggest a harmonic progression consisting of Eb minor (or major, depending on your viewpoint), Bb minor, Ab minor and Bbm/Eb (aka Ebm add9).
Adding to the general guitar-led construct, there is the occasional interjection from synthesizers. The most obvious being the heavily LFO pitch-modulated chord, that we hear at the end of each four bars.
A less obvious interjection comes from a filter-modulated lower mono synth part, which occasionally intrudes into bass territory.
Lyrically, Albarn seems concerned with the illusion of contentment within a consumerist, disposable society. An illusion that shrouds a deeper unhappiness.
As our writer Fred Garratt-Stanley perfectly articulated last year in his song story, “Feel Good Inc. expertly interrogated damaging developments in how the modern music industry and broader capitalist culture operate. It communicated its ideas with catchy, inventive sonics that connected with the masses.”
City’s breaking down on a camel’s back
They just have to go ’cause they don’t know wack
So, while you fill the streets, it’s appealing to see
You won’t get undercounted ’cause you’re damned and free
The first verse adopts more of a spoken lyrical approach, performed by Albarn (in the guise of 2-D) using a Shure 527B CB radio microphone to create a grainy, lo-fi texture (a typical choice for his vocals across Gorillaz’ back catalogue). The chorus provides us with a beautifully-constructed vocal, backed by a slight change in the song’s harmony.
The chords in the chorus are very similar to those used in the verse, but without the dominant presence of the bass riff.
We become fully reliant upon the guitar parts to indicate the harmony. The continuous rhythmic strumming of the tranquil acoustic guitar, employs chords of Ebm, Db, Abm, Bbm7, all of which are played for a bar each. As we reach the end of the chorus, the final chord is replaced by an extended 3 bars of Db.
Lyrically, Albarn expresses the overall theme of the song in breezy fashion, with a recurring allusion to windmills (that were also depicted in the song’s entrancing music video)
Windmill, windmill for the land
Turn forever, hand in hand
Take it all in on your stride
It is ticking, falling down
Albarn explained – in the guise of guitarist Noodle – a slightly stylised reason for this constant windmill-alluding; “My attention wandered. I played something more acoustic, just something that reminded me of the countryside,” Albarn/Noodle told MTV News. “So I wrote down some key words to help with the lyrical imagery. ‘Windmill’ was one of them. It was a trigger to symbolise a different time and also a reference to the ‘dark, satanic mills’ that William Blake wrote about in his verse of ‘Jerusalem.’ I remember that it all started when I was reading the ingredients of the back of a [potato chip] packet.”
Meanwhile, in the arrangement, an additional production twist enters into the chorus, as either a guitar or keyboard part has been heavily layered with some form of harmonizer, which results in the high shimmering effect that we can hear throughout its duration.
As we reach the second verse of the song, it falls to the featured artist, hip-hop outfit De La Soul, to entirely handle this section.
They are also responsible for the outro, and the incredibly infectious laugh that we hear right at the beginning of the track, provided by member Vincent Mason. In true De La Soul style, they combine elements of spoken and sung vocals, with emphasis on particular lyrics.
All of these arrangement choices were vital in shaping a song that has racked up a seriously impressive 2.6 billion streams on Spotify alone. In 2026, Feel Good Inc. remains a perennial playlist staple that, by dent of its timeless production (and fronted by its ageless band) never seems to date or fall out of fashion.
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