Welcome to the Plastic Beach

The beauty of this album cover for the Gorillaz’ plastic beach is its ability to mix a playful artistic flare with a public plea for environmental and ecological safety and preservation. It hits at the center of and brings awareness to our world’s problems; through it’s playful representation of the tackiness of modern culture. The hazy atmosphere and brownish orange color pallet speak to the mistreatment of the environment in the modern world. The only green in the entire piece is a few sad-looking palm trees and a bit of brownish grass on the mushroom shaped island, which confirms that there is bad air quality and lack of oxygen in the air around the island. The mushroom shaped island is symbolic of psychedelic drugs and that in a world as far-gone and desolate as this, consolation could only be found in escape. The humans in this world are trapped. They are trapped in the bird-shaped house that looks like it is trapped inside the island. A bird with only one wing forever attached to the island and the world it destroyed, only able to escape in its mind, unable to escape the horrors of what it has done to its own world. Humans have become these flightless birds entirely alone and isolated on small islands, having already destroyed everything we needed to be happy, namely our environment. It is most effective in communicating its message of environmental awareness because of these unusual images.