10 Huge Rock Artists That Went Electronic (And Nailed It)

10. Damon Albarn

At the turn of the century, the tides of popular music start to really pull away from rock and roll. As much as the Britpop movement may have brought things back to the clubs for a little while, the Oasis empire had ended and only the softer rock of bands like Coldplay were finding themselves on the charts. It was time for something new, and Damon Albarn managed to reinvent himself by embracing the digital atmosphere.

Looking to move away from Blur, Damon's friendship with artist Jamie Hewlett brought us Gorillaz, being one of the first virtual bands to grace MTV's main lineup. While there was still a lot of Damon's cynical bite that we were used to from his days in Blur, hiding behind a cartoon made him flex his muscles, with a lot of beats that were more in the vein of trip hop artists that were popping up around the same time.

In between the actual hooks on something like Rock the House, you'd get something like Double Bass which is just a piece of ambient noise that takes you on a journey without ever having to say anything. It didn't stop at just electronic either, with hip hop artists and the world of art rock gravitating to work with Gorillaz whenever they had the chance. Compared to the other rock offshoots happening in the '00s, this was the embodiment of what alternative was supposed to be. The future was coming on.