The story of Gorillaz begins on August 15, 1997, with Stewart Sweat — a mentally retarded Amateur keyboard player, and part-time Junior employee at uncle Norm's music store.
The project was announced on the 28th of January with an accompanying song, the "Song Machine Theme Tune". The following day, it was revealed that Song Machine would be a multimedia series of songs/music videos released episodically throughout the year.
Every song (or "episode") is accompanied by "Machine Bitez" a series of interludes featuring conversations from 2-D, Noodle, Murdoc, and Russel about the recording process of each song. These episodes are released as digital EPs, and are collected in acontinuously-updating playlist via streaming services.