Gorillaz | Demon Days | Plastic Beach | Humanz
- Audience-Alienating Era: While not without its fans in whole or in part, the album has become generally regarded by fans and critics alike to be a low point for the band. Their first album after a lengthy hiatus, the general consensus is that Damon Albarn and co lost focus on Gorillaz being not just a band, but its own universe with its own distinguished personality, with the biggest complaint being the album's overabundance and over-reliance on features, leading many to call it more of a compilation of miscellaneous tracks loosely tied by Gorillaz-style production than a proper "Gorillaz album". Fortunately, it appears the group took the criticisms to heart and have been on a path to recovery from the lukewarm-to-positively-received The Now Now and the even-more positively-received Song Machine series.
- Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: At the beginning of the video for "Strobelite," a random stereotypical Trap musician gets punched in the face; while funny, it really has nothing to do with the rest of the video. Evidently, Russel was supposed to be the puncher, but the subplot was cut from the final product.
- Broken Base: This is a very divisive album, generally agreed to be one of the band's weaker showings, but with many disagreements on how good or bad the actual album is on its own. The lack of a major driving concept can be seen as making it less consistent and important to Gorillaz lore, or it lends an appealing "mixtape" feel similar to their earlier albums. The abundance of featuring artists is seen as refreshing and fun, annoyingly overbearing, simply regular business for the band, and everything in between. With there being so many controversial decisions involved in the album, it's safe to assume that more than with previous projects, no two Gorillaz fans share the exact same opinion on it.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: One of the main complaints made about the album by its detractors. Nearly every song has a featured artist who takes the lead vocal role on that song, with on brief singing pieces by 2D. Many believed this made it feel more like a compilation album of other people's songs tied together by Gorillaz production, rather than an actual Gorillaz album.
- Unintentional Uncanny Valley: The cover artwork features realistic-looking renderings of the entire band. It's about as unsettling as you'd expect.
