"Feel Good Inc." is a sly commentary on the soulless songs the music industry is constantly foisting on a public that's all too willing to accept them. It's the most popular song by Gorillaz, a virtual band that combines the music of Damon Albarn (known for his work in Blur) with the visuals of Jamie Hewlett (known for his comic Tank Girl). Albarn's songs with Blur often blend satirical lyrics with pop melodies ("
Parklife" is a good example). "Feel Good Inc." takes that approach a step or two further, telling the story from the perspective of the four animated avatars that are the faces of Gorillaz.
Trugoy the Dove from De La Soul is the rapper on this song. Damon Albarn does the rest of the vocals in character as 2D. Gorillaz often use this formula, with a rapper providing another voice to augment Albarn. This started on their 2001 debut single, "
Clint Eastwood," where Del The Funkee Homosapien is the featured rapper.
The visuals for Gorillaz help tell the stories behind their songs - they're the only band we know of that has an illustrator (Jamie Hewlett) as an official member. The cast of animated characters is:
2-D: The lead singer, voiced by Damon Albarn. Well intended but can be a little dense.
Noodle: The only girl in the group, she plays guitar and keyboards. Generally represents innocence.
Murdoc: The hot-headed and often misguided bass player.
Russel: The introspective drummer. He and Murdoc butt heads.
The music video takes us high above a city, into a tower labeled "Feel Good Inc." where a lifeless-looking crowd watches the band perform the song. When 2-D gets to the "Windmill, windmill for the land" section, there's sunshine and the mood lifts. Noodle ends up on a floating island with the Windmill, but 2-D is still stuck in the tower.
The song is a throwback to the days of answering machines when callers would wait for the beep and leave a message on a microcassette. After the line:
And all I wanna hear is the message beep
My dreams, they got her kissing, 'cause I don't get sleep
We hear a beep, followed by the first chorus ("Windmill, windmill for the land..."), which is distorted with tape hiss as if we are listening to the message.
That's Trugoy the Dove's De La Soul bandmate PA Pasemaster Mase laughing in the song. He explained to
The Guardian that people have always found his guffawing contagious. Mase showcased his laughter on De La Soul's 2000 track "U Don't Wanna BDS," where it worked well. One night, during the performance, Mase giggled and chuckled throughout the entire song, and his De La Soul colleague Posdnuos commented, "He just comes out and laughs and gets a standing ovation."
"When we did the Gorillaz record," he added, "Damon whispered the rhyme in my ear and I knew exactly where he wanted me to laugh."
Gorillaz performed four special one-off concerts at London's Copper Box Arena from August 29 to September 3, 2025, showcasing their three most acclaimed albums - Gorillaz, Demon Days, and Plastic Beach - in their entirety, accompanied by venue-specific visuals and special guests. These shows coincided with the closing week of the House of Kong exhibition, which celebrated the band's 25-year history.
Media coverage and fan excitement surrounding these events led to a surge in streaming and sales for Gorillaz's catalog, particularly "Feel Good Inc.," which is widely regarded as their signature hit. This exposure pushed the track back into the UK Top 40 for the first time in nearly two decades.
The lyric gets rather abstract. When asked for an explanation, Damon Albarn jokes that his vocals are in a "sprechgesang" style, which he defines as "an arcane 18th-century German form of rap." In other words, we're on our own in sussing out the meaning.
Trugoy the Dove's rap section is even more bizarre, especially the line, "Care Bear rappin' in harder this year." His section is clever wordplay that flows with the song.
At the 2006 Grammy Awards, "Feel Good Inc." won for Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals. The video won for Breakthrough Video and Best Special Effects at the MTV Video Music Awards.
"Feel Good Inc." was the first single from the second Gorillaz album, Demon Days. Their 2001 self-titled debut album did very well in the UK, where Damon Albarn was known through Blur, and made inroads in America, but "Feel Good Inc." really broke the band globally. At this point (2005) Blur was on hiatus. Albarn poured his energy into Gorillaz and got more ambitious with their live shows, with live performers in front of the screens instead of behind them. The band got even more ambitious with their next album, Plastic Beach, in 2010, which carried a concept of environmental incompetence and included lots of big-name guest musicians, many of whom joined in for the live performances.
Along with the rest of the album, this song was produced by Danger Mouse (Brian Burton), who the following year had a huge hit with the song "
Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley, his duo with CeeLo Green.
