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Gorillaz are pulling together all their chart dominating moments for one release, The Singles Collection 2001-2011 which is out on Monday (November 28). To make sense of this culture-defining epic there was only man to turn to (Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett? We'll have none of their monkey [a journey to the west] business...), Gorillaz' erstwhile leader, raconteur and amateur gun-runner Murdoc Faust Niccals. Here is the final installment of his three part track-by-track guide to Gorillaz' singles, plus check out part one for the early years and part 2 for the Demon Days. Anything you read may be taken down and used against you in a court of law.

Stylo (featuring Bobby Womack and Mos Def)

"Wow! This was the first cut off the Plastic Beach album, the track that signaled our return after about four years away, so it had to be good. But you could instantly see what kind of muscles were flexing here, what kind of guns were in our new 'Rillaz artillery. Mos Def, Bobby Womack and Gorillaz. That's heavy. We almost had Barry Gibb on this one to, but he got Maclaine's Earache on the way in and shied out.

This was a new sound for Gorillaz. Less breakbeat and more of a kind of electro-ish 'crack funk' sound, with a little bit of politics and a whole lot of soul going down. With Stylo, I wanted the music to feel euphoric, whilst still putting across how precarious our tightly packed situation is now, worldwide. Where we're at as a species on this overpopulated planet (Coming on to the Overload. Overload. Overload).

Bobby Womack's chorus, he just explodes into the track. Pow!!! How good is it to get Bobby Womack on the record? This was the first recording he'd made in 15, 20 years, so what an honour. Bobby said he only returned to do this Gorillaz track because his granddaughter said Gorillaz were cool. Which is true. We are.

I was holding this back as a big opening card for Plastic Beach but then it got...it got stolen just weeks before the release. Some pirates shot up my island and nicked it, then leaked it online... You can't plug holes like that anymore in the brave new digital world. Thanks, swine! Bobby joined us on the Plastic Beach World Tour last year, and just knocked this song right out the park, every arena, every night. Incredible voice. Live this track took on a whole new life too..."

Superfast Jellyfish (featuring Gruff Rhys and De La Soul)

"When you think about Gorillaz, it makes sense to have a Super Furry Animal on there, doesn't it? I've always loved them, so I sent a jet over to pick Gruff up and take him over here.

A lot of fun, this track. If you turn it up loud enough all the colours start spilling and washing out of the speakers. You could flood your room with a track like this. How did this song come about? Well, when I was first out at Plastic Beach, when I first arrived, I was all alone. I used to just wander up and down kicking the landscape, looking out in the night sky, playing with the echoes and marveling at the enormity of the universe. You wouldn't believe the view of the stars from out there...just amazing. So, one time I noticed all these leaflets, about maybe... 20,000 of these leaflets washed up on the shore to the beach. All adverts for this SuperFast Jellyfish fast-food chain.

Obviously some failed franchise....maybe it didn't catch on....It's funny what washes up on the beach there. Anyway I just wrote the lyrics down based on the information on the back of these leaflets, It's a proven fact that SuperFast Jellyfish is the fastest food known to man. SuperFast Jellyfish - it's nice and shiny, it's crunchy and it tastes just like chicken...and it comes with a toy....essential for any fast food. Why would you eat fast food unless you got a toy out of it...? I ask myself.

Anyway, this was just a sonic advert for some cheap out-of-date plastic fast-food. There's not much more to it than that. Still that's why I like this track so much. It's made out of primary colours, and it's full of E-numbers and when I hear it, it makes my brain go fizzy....

And then on top of that we've got De La Soul on it, heralding a return for them and the Gorillaz collaborations. So, live right, I'm looking out of a stage with De La Soul, Gorillaz, Gruff from the Furry's, half The Clash and a string section all bopping away to a track I wrote about a fast food chain. These are the moments..."

On Melancholy Hill

"Ah....The Melancholy Hill - it's that feeling, that place that you get in your soul sometimes, like someone's let your tyres down. Y'know? I'm usually right as rain again by Thursday though. Anyway, 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. It surfs on the twin tides that flow between Hope and Melancholia, doesn't it?

I'm going to let you in to a secret: I actually found this song on the back seat of a bus - the 23 - somewhere near Ladbroke Grove. It was an unloved orphan tune so I took it back to Plastic Beach and transformed it into this gorgeous glitterball of a track. I think it was on its way to a Good, The Bad And The Queen rehearsal, but me - being the Child Catcher - I took it with me inside. But this soon become part of the landscape on Plastic Beach, like The Cloud Of Unknowing...and er...the other place.

I think the video for this, y'know?....this one might be my favourite ever Gorillaz promo - it was great to get all our Plastic Beach collaborators together to join us on our little manatee hunt. I had a hard time persuading some of them in squeeze to those little submarines, though. De La Soul were happy, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon are well seasoned salty seadogs, Snoop was pretty 'laidback' about the whole thing, Gruff was well up for it - but Lou Reed didn't want to get in that water. I had to slip him a roofie and hurl him in the cockpit myself. He was fine once he started though, he always is."

Doncamatic

"Oh Doncamatic! This was a delightful coda to our Plastic Beach album - I was looking for something to finish it off with a flourish after the thing had been released. I just missed squeezing this on to the original release! The singer you hear is a nice chap from Manchester called Daley. I actually found him washed up on Plastic Beach - covered in oil and singing to a seagull... or was it an albatross?

Anyway, I recognise golden pipes when I hear 'em so I popped a bag over his head, hosed the boy down and chucked him in the studio with Noodle and her eight-track. I left them to it while I stepped outside for a Lucky Lung or three, and when I popped back in this is what they'd come up with. Am I a genius or what? Right, I'm off to go 're-invent' the future down the pub or something...Au revoir, darlings! x"

Read Part 1 - the early years and Part 2 - Demon Days now. The Singles Collection 2001-2011 is out on Monday (28 November).

12:30 PM | 24/11/2011