Tranz

Tranz is the second track and sixth single on Gorillaz' sixth studio album The Now Now.

The song was released on the 14th of September 2018 as the final single from their 2018 album. On the 28th of September 2018, a remix of the song by Poté named "Tranz (Poté Remix) was released on various music streaming services. The song charted at #16 on Billboard's Hot Rock Songs around the same time.

Recording
Needs Expanding

Music video

 * Main Article: Tranz (Video)

The music video opens up with a shot of neon signs of the Gorillaz logo and the word "Tranz". The light of the signs fades away as the screen flashes white and shows 2-D, Noodle, Russel and Ace standing together on a white circular stage. They begin to play their instruments as trippy graphics play in the background. The rest of the video consists of occasional close-up shots of the individual members. Near the end of the video, various horror movie clips, and strange 3D and claymation animation begin to play in the as the screen distorts and stretches. At the end of the video, a lone jello-like 3D model of 2-D falls to the floor as the background flickers back into a green screen.



The music video for ‘Tranz’ was produced by Blinkink and Eddy, and was directed by Jamie Hewlett & Nicos Livesey. The video also features original claymation portions from Lee Hardcastle, and 3D animation by Marco Mori, Erik Ferguson, and Oliver Latta.

Personnel

 * Damon Albarn - Vocals, guitar, synthesizer
 * James Ford - Bass, drums, guitar, producer
 * Remi Kabaka Jr. - Producer

Trivia

 * The song's title is a wordplay on the word "Trance".
 * The music video was produced by Blinkink, the same studio behind the viral video series Don't Hug Me I'm Scared.
 * The claymation sequences of the video were created by Lee Hardcastle, a stop-motion director best known for his commercials for Adult Swim.
 * The Line were offered to produce this music video after producing Humility, but had to decline to offer. They would eventually return to working with Gorillaz and produced the videos for Song Machine.
 * In the promotional artwork for this video, Noodle's guitar has a sticker of Ren from Ren and Stimpy, however this sticker does not appear on her guitar in the music video.
 * Ace's movement and mannerisms in the Tranz music video are loosely based on the mannerisms of Gorillaz' live bassist Seye Adelekan. Adelekan mentioned this in an Instagram livestream before the video premiered.
 * Jamie Hewlett revealed in an interview with Gorillaz-Unofficial at Demon Dayz Festival LA that the music video was originally supposed to feature a spoken introduction where Ace would have a conversation with 2-D, but he realized the process of getting his lines approved by Cartoon Network plus the added cost of bringing in voice actor Jeff Bennett to record the lines would have significantly ballooned the budget.