Wednesday Wadio: The Gorillaz 'DARE'.

"'DARE' is a staple song used by several car audio enthusiasts to test their sound system's performance, as it contains both human voice, plenty of treble and a very strong bassline." - Wiki

Granted, I am WAY behind the bell curve on writing about this song - but I love it, I love the 2 legendary bands whose former members are involved with it and we just mentioned 'Dare' as part of the gym mix post from yesterday. I built a Happy Mondays related site recently, and in the process read a few articles surrounding how the song came to be. It's interesting stuff. I'll elaborate.

Damon Albarn, formerly of Blur and the current mastermind behind the Gorillaz, had always wanted to work with Shaun Ryder. The only problem is, Shaun Ryder has been a drug-addled mess for the last 20 years, and getting him involved in a project is tantamount to slamming your dink in a door. Don't get me wrong - I love the man's work. The Mondays and Black Grape are two of my favorite audio guilty pleasures. But he likes the hallucinogens and has been in some trouble as of late.

"Shaun Ryder... threatens another Lazarus style comeback with his best contribution to a record for well over a decade. It's his Manc whine that steals the show and makes Dare and so enthralling, he might have his debts paid off in ten years if he keeps this sort of performance up." - Beat Surrender



The song is hella fawnky, with great spooky sound effects, a catchy chorus and an interesting vocal alternation between Ryder's marble mouth, Albarn's falsetto and the Gorillaz only female member, Noodles. The video features Ryder's disembodied cyborg headed singing away just as soon as the Gorillaz release him from his closet.

Ian Brown, a proper media shit-disturber who also incidentally happened to be the lead singer of The Stone Roses, recently claimed that the song was originally supposed to be called 'There' - But Ryder had a little trouble enunciatingg that very tricky word. Brown smirks, "They were going to call it, 'It's There' but Shaun couldn't say 'there', so they called it Dare. I know the guy who was the recording engineer on it and he was like, 'One, two, three, four...' and it took Shaun five hours to come in." DARE to keep Shaun off Drugs.

The video is equal parts disturbing and brilliant, and the song is just brilliant. Watch the full clip here, or listen to the song by clicking Radio Pye in the left hand column.