It’s official – America has finally gone ape! Virgin Records America is proud to announce that music fans across the United States have gone bananas over the debut record from Gorillaz.
Since the group’s debut album was released on June 19, fans have flocked to record stores across the country to buy up over 500,000 copies of the record, earning the sketched supergroup its first gold album. For the week ending August 25, Gorillaz cracked the Top 20 with the album leaping from #21 to #16 with a bullet on the Billboard Top 200 Album chart. The album is expected to be platinum with over 1,000,000 copies sold by September 2001.
Powered by a genre-defying first single “Clint Eastwood” and its much talked about music video, the Gorillaz are stampeding their way over radio and MTV. The Gorillaz have busted out of their cage only to be embraced by several different radio formats. Such influential radio stations as KISS FM in Los Angeles, Z100 in New York, and Y100 in Miami on the pop side are playing the song. The record is a “monster” on the alternative side, where it has been the #1 most spun track at such key stations as KROQ in Los Angeles, WBCN in Boston, Live 105 in San Francisco, and WHFS in Washington, DC. Even Power 106, one of the top urban stations in the country, is spinning “Clint Eastwood.”
In addition to this success on the airwaves, the video for “Clint Eastwood” has also been one of the most heralded videos of the Year. The clip has been nominated for awards at both the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards (Breakthrough Video; Best Art Direction) and the Billboard Music Video Awards (Maximum Vision Award; Director of the Year; Best New Artist Clip of the Year, Modern Rock; Best New Artist Clip of the Year, Rap/Hip-Hop). The MTV Video Music Awards will be handed out in New York City on September 6, with the Billboard Music Videos Awards following on November 2 in Beverly Hills, CA.
