Not so much in the past when he worked with people like Dan the automator and Dangermouse, but on the new one Albarn did most of the production. I would say that at least as far as the music is concerned it is a solo project that has a lot of guests. Conceptually it's a duo with Jamie Hewlett as far as animation goes.

I'd hardly call Gorillaz a side project to Blur though. Blur hasn't released an album since 2003.

Fair enough, I concede. I didn't realize the rules of this thread were so stringent.

So stringent? The idea that a band member's attention would be divided between his primary band and the side work seems like a fairly critical part of their point. I happen to like TGTBTQ far more than any Blur or Gorillaz album but didn't really think it fit the criteria.

I wouldn't argue that they fit either and can't personally vouch for them but its worth mentioning here that a bunch of guys from Elvis Costello's backing band (including Pete Thomas) play around LA as Jackshit when they're not playing with EC and they've been getting rave reviews for the last two years.

Also, this is as good a place as any to commit the blasphemy to print that not only do I seem to be the only one here to like John Squire's solo work but I've recently decided that I think I like it more than I like the Stone Roses. Still doesn't count though as SR were broken up well before the Squire solo albums.

He started the article talking about Slash...

Yeah somehow I've never accepted the fact that Velvet Revolver is a real band, and therefore it seems weird to me that anything Slash does now would be considered a "side project".