"On Melancholy Hill" is the third single from British virtual band Gorillaz's third studio album, Plastic Beach. The single was released on 12 June 2010. Pitchfork media ranked it at 152 on the top 200 songs of the decade so far. It was Number 9 on pongsocket.com's list of best songs of 2010, 92 on jongmusic.com list of 100 best songs of 2010, and Number 5 on BBC America's list of best British songs of 2010.
Background
The song was originally written by Damon Albarn during the production of The Good, the Bad & the Queen's self titled album. Band member Murdoc Niccals stated the following about "On Melancholy Hill" in an interview:
The Melancholy Hill - it's that feeling, that place, that you get in your soul sometimes, like someone's let your tyres down. It's nice to break up the album with something a little lighter. It's good to have something that's a genuine pop moment on every album. And this is one of those.
Promotion
Part of the promotion for the single included an internet scavenger hunt for various images of the band which, when completed, gave successful hunters an exclusive remix of the track by Josh Wink. In 2019, the song was featured in the third episode of the video gameLife Is Strange 2.
Music video
The music video was released worldwide on 14 June 2010. It was originally made exclusively available via iTunes, but was uploaded to the band's official YouTube channel a few days later. A teaser for the video was released on 9 June 2010, and stills of the video were published on writteninmusic.com on 11 June 2010. The video begins with huge ocean liner M. Harriet under attack by two planes. A ship attendant finds Noodle in her room, offering to escort her to the lifeboats. She says nothing, but walks over to a briefcase containing a Tommy gun and walks down the hall past the attendant with the gun. The song begins with Noodle opening fire at the two oncoming planes that are attacking the ship. She manages to shoot one plane down, but doesn't have enough time to shoot the other. The other plane drops a bomb on the ship. As the ship sinks, Noodle is shown to have survived and climbs into a lifeboat with only her guitar and some supplies. Later on, a gigantic Russel Hobbs lifts out of the water underneath Noodle's lifeboat. The rest of the video shows Murdoc Niccals, 2-D, and Cyborg Noodle traveling through the deep ocean with a fleet of submarines, crewed by all of the collaborators that helped make the album, including Lou Reed, De La Soul, Snoop Dogg, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, 2manyDJs, and Gruff Rhys. As they travel, a swarm of "Superfast Jellyfish" are seen and inadvertently sucked into some of the submarines. The submarines then rise to the surface, where a large manatee is sitting atop a tall sea stack. Murdoc spots the Boogieman leaning over the creature and, shocked by the sight, orders Cyborg Noodle to attack it. Cyborg Noodle pulls out a pump-action shotgun and shoots at the Boogieman, but she misses, hitting his clothes. He grabs the manatee and dives into the ocean. When the fog behind the plateau clears, it reveals Plastic Beach.
