title: Berlin

text: The city has four public research universities and more than 30 private, professional, and technical colleges "(Hochschulen)", offering a wide range of disciplines. A record number of 175,651 students were enrolled in the winter term of 2015/16. Among them around 18% have an international background.


title: Berlin

text: The three largest universities combined have approximately 103,000 enrolled students. There are the Freie Universität Berlin "(Free University of Berlin, FU Berlin)" with about 33,000 students, the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin "(HU Berlin)" with 35,000 students, and the Technische Universität Berlin "(TU Berlin)" with 35,000 students. The Charité Medical School has around 8,000 students. The FU, the HU, the TU, and the Charité make up the Berlin University Alliance, which has received funding from the Excellence Strategy program of the German government. The Universität der Künste "(UdK)" has about 4,000 students and ESMT Berlin is only one of four business schools in Germany with triple accreditation. The Hertie School, a private public policy school located in Mitte, has more than 900 students and doctoral students. The Berlin School of Economics and Law has an enrollment of about 11,000 students, the Berlin University of Applied Sciences and Technology of about 12,000 students, and the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft (University of Applied Sciences for Engineering and Economics) of about 14,000 students.


title: Berlin

text: The city has a high density of internationally renowned research institutions, such as the Fraunhofer Society, the Leibniz Association, the Helmholtz Association, and the Max Planck Society, which are independent of, or only loosely connected to its universities. In 2012, around 65,000 professional scientists were working in research and development in the city.


title: Berlin

text: Berlin is one of the knowledge and innovation communities (KIC) of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). The KIC is based at the Center for Entrepreneurship at TU Berlin and has a focus in the development of IT industries. It partners with major multinational companies such as Siemens, Deutsche Telekom, and SAP.


title: Berlin

text: One of Europe's successful research, business and technology clusters is based at WISTA in Berlin-Adlershof, with more than 1,000 affiliated firms, university departments and scientific institutions.


title: Berlin

text: In addition to the university-affiliated libraries, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin is a major research library. Its two main locations are on Potsdamer Straße and on Unter den Linden. There are also 86 public libraries in the city. ResearchGate, a global social networking site for scientists, is based in Berlin.


title: Berlin

text: Berlin is known for its numerous cultural institutions, many of which enjoy international reputation. The diversity and vivacity of the metropolis led to a trendsetting atmosphere. An innovative music, dance and art scene has developed in the 21st century.


title: Berlin

text: Young people, international artists and entrepreneurs continued to settle in the city and made Berlin a popular entertainment center in the world.


title: Berlin

text: The expanding cultural performance of the city was underscored by the relocation of the Universal Music Group who decided to move their headquarters to the banks of the River Spree. In 2005, Berlin was named "City of Design" by UNESCO and has been part of the Creative Cities Network ever since.


title: Berlin

text: Many German and International films were shot in Berlin, including M, One, Two, Three, Cabaret, Christiane F., Possession, Octopussy, Wings of Desire, Run Lola Run, The Bourne Trilogy, Good Bye, Lenin!, The Lives of Others, Inglourious Basterds, Hanna, Unknown and Bridge of Spies.


title: Berlin

text: Apart from the Museum Island, there are many additional museums in the city. The Gemäldegalerie (Painting Gallery) focuses on the paintings of the "old masters" from the 13th to the 18th centuries, while the Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery, built by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe) specializes in 20th-century European painting. The Hamburger Bahnhof, in Moabit, exhibits a major collection of modern and contemporary art. The expanded Deutsches Historisches Museum reopened in the Zeughaus with an overview of German history spanning more than a millennium. The Bauhaus Archive is a museum of 20th-century design from the famous Bauhaus school. Museum Berggruen houses the collection of noted 20th century collector Heinz Berggruen, and features an extensive assortment of works by Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne, and Giacometti, among others. The Kupferstichkabinett Berlin (Museum of Prints and Drawings) is part of the Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin (Berlin State Museums) and the Kulturforum at Potsdamer Platz in the Tiergarten district of Berlin's Mitte district. It is the largest museum of the graphic arts in Germany and at the same time one of the four most important collections of its kind in the world. The collection includes Friedrich Gilly's design for the monument to Frederick II of Prussia.


title: Berlin

text: The Jewish Museum has a standing exhibition on two millennia of German-Jewish history. The German Museum of Technology in Kreuzberg has a large collection of historical technical artifacts. The "Museum für Naturkunde" (Berlin's natural history museum) exhibits natural history near Berlin Hauptbahnhof. It has the largest mounted dinosaur in the world (a "Giraffatitan" skeleton). A well-preserved specimen of "Tyrannosaurus rex" and the early bird "Archaeopteryx" are at display as well.


title: Berlin

text: In Dahlem, there are several museums of world art and culture, such as the Museum of Asian Art, the Ethnological Museum, the Museum of European Cultures, as well as the Allied Museum. The Brücke Museum features one of the largest collection of works by artist of the early 20th-century expressionist movement. In Lichtenberg, on the grounds of the former East German Ministry for State Security, is the Stasi Museum. The site of Checkpoint Charlie, one of the most renowned crossing points of the Berlin Wall, is still preserved. A private museum venture exhibits a comprehensive documentation of detailed plans and strategies devised by people who tried to flee from the East.


title: Berlin

text: The Beate Uhse Erotic Museum claimed to be the largest erotic museum in the world until it closed in 2014.


title: Berlin

text: The cityscape of Berlin displays large quantities of urban street art. It has become a significant part of the city's cultural heritage and has its roots in the graffiti scene of Kreuzberg of the 1980s. The Berlin Wall itself has become one of the largest open-air canvasses in the world. The leftover stretch along the Spree river in Friedrichshain remains as the East Side Gallery. Berlin today is consistently rated as an important world city for street art culture.


title: Berlin

text: Berlin has galleries which are quite rich in contemporary art. Located in Mitte, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, KOW, Sprüth Magers; Kreuzberg there are a few galleries as well such as Blain Southern, Esther Schipper, Future Gallery, König Gallerie.


title: Berlin

text: Berlin's nightlife has been celebrated as one of the most diverse and vibrant of its kind. In the 1970s and 80s the SO36 in Kreuzberg was a center for punk music and culture. The "SOUND" and the "Dschungel" gained notoriety. Throughout the 1990s, people in their 20s from all over the world, particularly those in Western and Central Europe, made Berlin's club scene a premier nightlife venue. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many historic buildings in Mitte, the former city center of East Berlin, were illegally occupied and re-built by young squatters and became a fertile ground for underground and counterculture gatherings. The central boroughs are home to many nightclubs, including the Watergate, Tresor and Berghain. The KitKatClub and several other locations are known for their sexually uninhibited parties.


title: Berlin

text: Clubs are not required to close at a fixed time during the weekends, and many parties last well into the morning or even all weekend. The "Weekend Club" near Alexanderplatz features a roof terrace that allows partying at night. Several venues have become a popular stage for the Neo-Burlesque scene.


title: Berlin

text: Berlin has a long history of gay culture, and is an important birthplace of the LGBT rights movement. Same-sex bars and dance halls operated freely as early as the 1880s, and the first gay magazine, "Der Eigene", started in 1896. By the 1920s, gays and lesbians had an unprecedented visibility. Today, in addition to a positive atmosphere in the wider club scene, the city again has a huge number of queer clubs and festivals. The most famous and largest are Berlin Pride, the Christopher Street Day, the Lesbian and Gay City Festival in Berlin-Schöneberg, the Kreuzberg Pride and Hustlaball.


title: Berlin

text: The annual Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) with around 500,000 admissions is considered to be the largest publicly attended film festival in the world. The Karneval der Kulturen ("Carnival of Cultures"), a multi-ethnic street parade, is celebrated every Pentecost weekend. Berlin is also well known for the cultural festival Berliner Festspiele, which includes the jazz festival JazzFest Berlin, and Young Euro Classic, the largest international festival of youth orchestras in the world. Several technology and media art festivals and conferences are held in the city, including Transmediale and Chaos Communication Congress. The annual Berlin Festival focuses on indie rock, electronic music and synthpop and is part of the International Berlin Music Week. Every year Berlin hosts one of the largest New Year's Eve celebrations in the world, attended by well over a million people. The focal point is the Brandenburg Gate, where midnight fireworks are centered, but various private fireworks displays take place throughout the entire city. Partygoers in Germany often toast the New Year with a glass of sparkling wine.


title: Berlin

text: Berlin is home to 44 theaters and stages. The Deutsches Theater in Mitte was built in 1849–50 and has operated almost continuously since then. The Volksbühne at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz was built in 1913–14, though the company had been founded in 1890. The Berliner Ensemble, famous for performing the works of Bertolt Brecht, was established in 1949. The Schaubühne was founded in 1962 and moved to the building of the former Universum Cinema on Kurfürstendamm in 1981. With a seating capacity of 1,895 and a stage floor of , the Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin Mitte is the largest show palace in Europe.


title: Berlin

text: Berlin has three major opera houses: the Deutsche Oper, the Berlin State Opera, and the Komische Oper. The Berlin State Opera on Unter den Linden opened in 1742 and is the oldest of the three. Its musical director is Daniel Barenboim. The Komische Oper has traditionally specialized in operettas and is also at Unter den Linden. The Deutsche Oper opened in 1912 in Charlottenburg.


title: Berlin

text: The city's main venue for musical theater performances are the Theater am Potsdamer Platz and Theater des Westens (built in 1895). Contemporary dance can be seen at the "Radialsystem V". The Tempodrom is host to concerts and circus-inspired entertainment. It also houses a multi-sensory spa experience. The Admiralspalast in Mitte has a vibrant program of variety and music events.


title: Berlin

text: There are seven symphony orchestras in Berlin. The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra is one of the preeminent orchestras in the world; it is housed in the Berliner Philharmonie near Potsdamer Platz on a street named for the orchestra's longest-serving conductor, Herbert von Karajan. Simon Rattle was its principal conductor from 1999 to 2018, a position now held by Kirill Petrenko. The Konzerthausorchester Berlin was founded in 1952 as the orchestra for East Berlin. Ivan Fischer is its principal conductor. The Haus der Kulturen der Welt presents exhibitions dealing with intercultural issues and stages world music and conferences. The "Kookaburra" and the "Quatsch Comedy Club" are known for satire and comedy shows. In 2018, the "New York Times" described Berlin as "arguably the world capital of underground electronic music".


title: Berlin

text: The cuisine and culinary offerings of Berlin vary greatly. 23 restaurants in Berlin have been awarded one or more Michelin stars in the Michelin Guide of 2021, which ranks the city at the top for the number of restaurants having this distinction in Germany. Berlin is well known for its offerings of vegetarian and vegan cuisine and is home to an innovative entrepreneurial food scene promoting cosmopolitan flavors, local and sustainable ingredients, pop-up street food markets, supper clubs, as well as food festivals, such as Berlin Food Week.


title: Berlin

text: Many local foods originated from north German culinary traditions and include rustic and hearty dishes with pork, goose, fish, peas, beans, cucumbers, or potatoes. Typical Berliner fare include popular street food like the "Currywurst" (which gained popularity with postwar construction workers rebuilding the city), "Buletten" and the "Berliner" donut, known in Berlin as . German bakeries offering a variety of breads and pastries are widespread. One of Europe's largest delicatessen markets is found at the KaDeWe, and among the world's largest chocolate stores is "Fassbender & Rausch".


title: Berlin

text: Berlin is also home to a diverse gastronomy scene reflecting the immigrant history of the city. Turkish and Arab immigrants brought their culinary traditions to the city, such as the lahmajoun and falafel, which have become common fast food staples. The modern fast-food version of the doner kebab sandwich which evolved in Berlin in the 1970s, has since become a favorite dish in Germany and elsewhere in the world. Asian cuisine like Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, Korean, and Japanese restaurants, as well as Spanish tapas bars, Italian, and Greek cuisine, can be found in many parts of the city.


title: Berlin

text: Zoologischer Garten Berlin, the older of two zoos in the city, was founded in 1844. It is the most visited zoo in Europe and presents the most diverse range of species in the world. It was the home of the captive-born celebrity polar bear Knut. The city's other zoo, Tierpark Friedrichsfelde, was founded in 1955.


title: Berlin

text: Berlin's Botanischer Garten includes the Botanic Museum Berlin. With an area of and around 22,000 different plant species, it is one of the largest and most diverse collections of botanical life in the world. Other gardens in the city include the Britzer Garten, and the Gärten der Welt (Gardens of the World) in Marzahn.


title: Berlin

text: The Tiergarten park in Mitte, with landscape design by Peter Joseph Lenné, is one of Berlin's largest and most popular parks. In Kreuzberg, the Viktoriapark provides a viewing point over the southern part of inner-city Berlin. Treptower Park, beside the Spree in Treptow, features a large Soviet War Memorial. The Volkspark in Friedrichshain, which opened in 1848, is the oldest park in the city, with monuments, a summer outdoor cinema and several sports areas. Tempelhofer Feld, the site of the former city airport, is the world's largest inner-city open space.


title: Berlin

text: Potsdam is on the southwestern periphery of Berlin. The city was a residence of the Prussian kings and the German Kaiser, until 1918. The area around Potsdam in particular Sanssouci is known for a series of interconnected lakes and cultural landmarks. The Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin are the largest World Heritage Site in Germany.


title: Berlin

text: Berlin is also well known for its numerous cafés, street musicians, beach bars along the Spree River, flea markets, boutique shops and pop up stores, which are a source for recreation and leisure.


title: Berlin

text: Berlin has established a high-profile as a host city of major international sporting events. The city hosted the 1936 Summer Olympics and was the host city for the 2006 FIFA World Cup final. The IAAF World Championships in Athletics was held in the Olympiastadion in 2009. The city hosted the Basketball Euroleague Final Four in 2009 and 2016. and was one of the hosts of the FIBA EuroBasket 2015. In 2015 Berlin became the venue for the UEFA Champions League Final.


title: Berlin

text: Berlin will host the 2023 Special Olympics World Summer Games. This will be the first time Germany has ever hosted the Special Olympics World Games.


title: Berlin

text: The annual Berlin Marathon a course that holds the most top-10 world record runs and the ISTAF are well-established athletic events in the city. The Mellowpark in Köpenick is one of the biggest skate and BMX parks in Europe. A Fan Fest at Brandenburg Gate, which attracts several hundred-thousand spectators, has become popular during international football competitions, like the UEFA European Championship.


title: Berlin

text: In 2013 around 600,000 Berliners were registered in one of the more than 2,300 sport and fitness clubs. The city of Berlin operates more than 60 public indoor and outdoor swimming pools. Berlin is the largest Olympic training center in Germany. About 500 top athletes (15% of all German top athletes) are based there. Forty-seven elite athletes participated in the 2012 Summer Olympics. Berliners would achieve seven gold, twelve silver and three bronze medals.


title: Berlin

text: Several professional clubs representing the most important spectator team sports in Germany have their base in Berlin. The oldest and most popular first division team based in Berlin is the football club Hertha BSC. The team represented Berlin as a founding member of the Bundesliga in 1963. Other professional team sport clubs include:


title: Gorillaz

text: Gorillaz are an English virtual band formed in 1998 by musician Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, from London. The band primarily consists of four fictional members: 2-D (vocals, keyboards), Murdoc Niccals (bass guitar), Noodle (guitar, keyboards, vocals), and Russel Hobbs (drums). Their universe is presented in music videos, interviews, comic strips and short cartoons. Gorillaz' music has featured collaborations with a wide range of featured artists, with Albarn as the only permanent musical contributor.


title: Gorillaz

text: With Gorillaz, Albarn departed from the distinct Britpop of his band Blur, exploring a variety of musical styles including hip hop, electronic music and world music through an "eccentrically postmodern" approach. The band's 2001 debut album "Gorillaz", which featured dub, Latin and punk influences, went triple platinum in the UK and double platinum in Europe, with sales driven by the success of the album's lead single "Clint Eastwood". Their second studio album, "Demon Days" (2005), went six times platinum in the UK and double platinum in the US and spawned the successful lead single "Feel Good Inc.".


title: Gorillaz

text: The band's third album, "Plastic Beach" (2010), featured environmentalist themes, a synth-pop approach and an expanded roster of featured artists. Their fourth album, "The Fall" (2010), was recorded on the road during the Escape to Plastic Beach Tour and released on 25 December 2010. During 2015, Remi Kabaka Jr. became a music producer for the band after more than 10 years providing the voice of Russel and was credited as such alongside Albarn and Hewlett in the official 2019 documentary "Gorillaz: Reject False Icons". The band's fifth album, "Humanz", was released after a seven-year hiatus on 28 April 2017. Their sixth album, "The Now Now" (2018), featured stripped-down production and a greater musical focus on Albarn. Gorillaz' started a new project in 2020, "Song Machine", a music-based web series with episodes that consist of standalone singles and accompanying music videos featuring different guests each episode, resulting in their seventh album, "" (2020). In 2023, the band will release its eighth studio album, "Cracker Island".


title: Gorillaz

text: Gorillaz has presented itself live in a variety of different ways throughout the band's history, such as hiding the touring band from the audience's view in the early years of the project, projecting animated band members on stage via computer graphics and traditional live touring featuring a fully visible live band. The band have sold over 27 million records worldwide and are cited by "Guinness World Records" as the world's "Most Successful Virtual Band". They have won a Grammy Award, two MTV Video Music Awards, an NME Award and four MTV Europe Music Awards. They have also been nominated for 11 Brit Awards and won Best British Group at the 2018 Brit Awards.


title: Gorillaz

text: Musician Damon Albarn and comic artist Jamie Hewlett met in 1990 when guitarist Graham Coxon, a fan of Hewlett's work, asked him to interview Blur, which Albarn and Coxon had recently formed. The interview was published in "Deadline" magazine, home of Hewlett's comic strip "Tank Girl". Hewlett initially thought Albarn was "arsey, a wanker;" and despite becoming acquaintances with the band, they often did not get on, especially after Hewlett began seeing Coxon's ex-girlfriend Jane Olliver. Despite this, Albarn and Hewlett started sharing a flat on Westbourne Grove in London in 1997. Hewlett had recently broken up with Olliver and Albarn was at the end of his highly publicised relationship with Justine Frischmann of Elastica.


title: Gorillaz

text: The idea to create Gorillaz came about when Albarn and Hewlett were watching MTV. Hewlett said, "If you watch MTV for too long, it's a bit like hell – there's nothing of substance there. So we got this idea for a virtual band, something that would be a comment on that." Albarn recalled the idea similarly, saying "This was the beginning of the boy band sort of explosion... and it just felt so manufactured. And we were like, well let's make a manufactured band but make it kind of interesting." The band originally identified themselves as "Gorilla" and the first song they recorded was "Ghost Train", which was later released as a B-side on their single "Rock the House". The band's visual style is thought to have evolved from "The 16s", a rejected comic strip Hewlett conceived with "Tank Girl" co-creator Alan Martin.


title: Gorillaz

text: Although not released under the Gorillaz name, Albarn has said that "one of the first ever Gorillaz tunes" was Blur's 1997 single "On Your Own", which was released for their fifth studio album "Blur".


title: Gorillaz

text: From 1998 to 2000, Albarn recorded for Gorillaz' self-titled debut album at his newly opened Studio 13 in London as well as at Geejam Studios in Jamaica. The sessions resulted in the band's first release, the EP "Tomorrow Comes Today", released on 27 November 2000. This EP consisted mostly of tracks which later appeared on the album, and it also included the band's first music video for "Tomorrow Comes Today", which introduced the virtual band members for the first time.


title: Gorillaz

text: With "Gorillaz", Albarn began to branch out into other genres which he had not explored with Blur, such as hip-hop, dub and Latin music, a process he described as liberating: "One of the reasons I began Gorillaz is I had a lot of rhythms I never thought I could use with Blur. A lot of that stuff never really seemed to manifest itself in the music we made together as Blur." Albarn originally began work on the album by himself, however eventually invited American hip-hop producer Dan "the Automator" Nakamura to serve as producer on the album, explaining "I called Dan the Automator in after I'd done more than half of it and felt it would benefit from having somebody else's focus. So I just rang him and asked whether he was interested in helping me finish it off." Nakamura and Albarn had recently collaborated on "Deltron 3030", the debut album by the hip-hop supergroup of the same name featuring rapper Del the Funky Homosapien and DJ Kid Koala, both of whom Nakamura recruited to assist in finishing Gorillaz material. Del featured on two tracks on the album, including the lead single "Clint Eastwood", while Kid Koala contributed turntables to various tracks. The album featured additional collaborations with Ibrahim Ferrer of Buena Vista Social Club, Miho Hatori of Cibo Matto and Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club, representing a pattern of collaboration with a wide range of artists which later became a staple of Gorillaz as a project.


title: Gorillaz

text: "Gorillaz" was released on 26 March 2001 and was a major commercial success, debuting at #3 on the UK Albums Chart and #14 on the US Billboard 200, going on to sell over 7 million copies worldwide, powered by the success of the "Clint Eastwood" single. The album was promoted with the singles "Clint Eastwood", "19-2000" and "Rock the House", in addition to the previously released "Tomorrow Comes Today", with each single featuring a music video directed by Hewlett starring the virtual members. Hewlett also helmed the design of the band's website, which was presented as an interactive tour of the band's fictional "Kong Studios" home and recording studio, featuring interactive games and explorative elements. Following the release of the album, the band embarked on a brief tour of Europe, Japan and the United States to support the album in which a touring band featuring Albarn played completely obscured behind a giant screen on which Hewlett's accompanying visuals were projected. The virtual band member's voice actors were also present at some shows and spoke live to the audience to give the impression that the fictional band was present on stage. In later interviews, Albarn described the band's first tour as difficult due to the limitations imposed by the band playing behind a screen: "For someone who had just spent the last ten years out front being a frontman [with Blur], it was a really weird experience. And I have to say, some nights I just wanted to get a knife and just cut [the screen] and stick my head through." The album was followed by the B-sides compilation "G-Sides" released in December 2001.


title: Gorillaz

text: On 7 December 2001, the band released the single "911" a collaboration with hip hop group D12 (without Eminem) and singer Terry Hall of the Specials about the September 11 attacks. At the 2002 Brit Awards the virtual members of Gorillaz "performed" for the first time, appearing in 3D animation on four large screens along with rap accompaniment by Phi Life Cypher, a production which reportedly cost £300,000 to create. The band were nominated for four Brit Awards, including Best British Group, Best British Album and British Breakthrough Act, but did not win any awards.


title: Gorillaz

text: On 1 July 2002, a remix album titled "Laika Come Home" was released, containing most of the tracks from "Gorillaz" remixed in dub and reggae style by the DJ group Spacemonkeyz. On 18 November 2002, the band released the DVD "", which contained all of the band's released visual content up to that point along with other extras.


title: Gorillaz

text: After the success of the debut album, Albarn and Hewlett briefly explored the possibility of creating a Gorillaz theatrical film, but Hewlett claimed the duo later lost interest: "We lost all interest in doing it as soon as we started meeting with studios and talking to these Hollywood executive types, we just weren't on the same page. We said, fuck it, we'll sit on the idea until we can do it ourselves, and maybe even raise the money ourselves."


title: Gorillaz

text: Albarn spent the majority of 2003 on tour with Blur in support of their newly released album "Think Tank"; however, upon completion of the tour, he decided to return to Gorillaz, reuniting with Hewlett to prepare for a second album. Hewlett explained that the duo chose to continue Gorillaz to prove that the project was not "a gimmick": "If you do it again, it's no longer a gimmick, and if it works then we've proved a point." The result was "Demon Days", released on 11 May 2005. The album was another major commercial success, debuting at No. 1 on the UK Albums Charts and #6 on the US Billboard 200, and has since gone six times platinum in the UK, double platinum in the United States, and triple platinum in Australia, outperforming sales of the first album and becoming the band's most successful album to date. The album's success was partially driven by the success of the lead single "Feel Good Inc." featuring hip-hop group De La Soul, which topped "Billboard"'s Alternative Songs chart in the U.S. for eight consecutive weeks and was featured in a commercial for Apple's iPod. The album was also supported by the later singles "Dare", "Dirty Harry", and the double A-side "Kids with Guns" / "El Mañana".


title: Gorillaz

text: "Demon Days" found the band taking a darker tone, partially influenced by a train journey Albarn had taken with his family through impoverished rural China. Albarn described the album as a concept album: "The whole album kind of tells the story of the night — staying up during the night — but it's also an allegory. It's what we're living in basically, the world in a state of night." Believing that the album needed "a slightly different approach" compared to the first album, Albarn enlisted American producer Brian Burton, better known by his stage name Danger Mouse, to produce the album, whom Albarn praised as "one of the best young producers in the world" after hearing his 2004 mashup album "The Grey Album". Burton felt he and Albarn had a high degree of affinity with each other, stating in an interview on the creation of the album: "We never had any arguments. We even have that finish-each-other's-sentences thing happening. There are a lot of the same influences between us, like Ennio Morricone and psychedelic pop-rock, but he has 10 years on me, so I have some catching up to do. Where he can school me on new wave and punk of the late ’70s/early ’80s, I can school him on a lot of hip-hop. We’re very competitive and pushed each other." Similar to the first album, "Demon Days" features collaborations with several different artists, including Bootie Brown, Shaun Ryder, Ike Turner, MF Doom (who was recording with Danger Mouse as Danger Doom at the time) and Martina Topley-Bird, among others.


title: Gorillaz

text: The virtual Gorillaz members "performed" at the 2005 MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2005 and again at the 48th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2006, appearing to perform on stage via Musion Eyeliner technology. Albarn later expressed disappointment at the execution of the performance, citing the low volume level required so as to not disturb the technology: "That was tough... They started and it was so quiet cause they've got this piece of film that you've got to pull over the stage so any bass frequencies would just mess up the illusion completely." At the Grammys, the band won Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for "Feel Good Inc.", which was also nominated for Record of the Year. Albarn and Hewlett explored the idea of producing a full "live holographic tour" featuring the virtual Gorillaz appearing on stage with Munsion Eyeliner technology after the Grammys performance, but the tour was ultimately never realised due to the tremendous expense and logistical issues that would have resulted.


title: Gorillaz

text: In October 2006, the band released the book "Rise of the Ogre". Presented as an autobiography of the band ostensibly written by the fictional members and expanding on the band's fictional backstory and universe, the book was actually written by official Gorillaz script writer and live drummer Cass Browne and featured new artwork by Hewlett. Later the same month, the band released another DVD, "", compiling much of the band's visual content from the album cycle. A second B-sides compilation, "D-Sides" was released in November 2007, featuring B-sides and remixes associated with "Demon Days" as well as unreleased tracks from the sessions for the album. In 2008, the documentary film "Bananaz" was released. Directed by Ceri Levy, the film documents the behind-the-scenes history of the band from 2000 to 2006.


title: Gorillaz

text: Albarn and Hewlett's next project together was the opera "" based on the classical Chinese novel "Journey to the West", which premiered at the 2007 Manchester International Festival. While not officially a Gorillaz project, Albarn mentioned in an interview that the project was "Gorillaz, really but we can't call it that for legal reasons".


title: Gorillaz

text: After completing work on "Monkey" in late 2007, Albarn and Hewlett began working on a new Gorillaz project entitled "Carousel", described by Albarn as being about "the mystical aspects of Britain". Hewlett described "Carousel" in a 2008 interview as "even bigger and more difficult than "Monkey"... It's sort of like a film but not with one narrative story. There's many stories, told around a bigger story, set to music, and done in live action, animation, all different styles. Originally it was a film but now we think it's a film and it's a stage thing as well. Damon's written around 70 songs for it, and I’ve got great plans for the visuals." The "Carousel" concept was eventually dropped with Albarn and Hewlett's work evolving into the third Gorillaz studio album "Plastic Beach".


title: Gorillaz

text: Drawing upon environmentalist themes, "Plastic Beach" was inspired by the idea of a "secret floating island deep in the South Pacific... made up of the detritus, debris and washed up remnants of humanity" inspired by marine pollution such as plastic that Albarn had found in a beach near one of his homes in Devon as well as the Great Pacific garbage patch. Unlike previous Gorillaz albums, Albarn made the decision to produce "Plastic Beach" by himself, with no co-producer. The album was recorded throughout 2008 and 2009 in London, New York City and Syria although production of the album was briefly interrupted so that Albarn could join Blur for a reunion tour in the summer of 2009, with Albarn explaining "there's no way you can do that and that [Blur and Gorillaz] at the same time." "Plastic Beach" saw Gorillaz move into a more electronic pop sound, with Albarn describing the album as "the most pop record I've ever made" and saying that he took special care to make the album's lyrics and melodies clear and focused compared to previous albums. "Plastic Beach" also featured the largest cast of collaborators featured yet on a Gorillaz album, fulfilling Albarn's goal of "work[ing] with an incredibly eclectic, surprising cast of people" including artists such as Snoop Dogg, Mos Def, Bobby Womack, Little Dragon, Lou Reed and Gruff Rhys among others, and also included orchestral contributions from Sinfonia Viva and the Lebanese National Symphony Orchestra. Albarn explained the expanded roster of featured artists represented his and Hewlett's new vision of Gorillaz as a project, explaining in a July 2008 interview that "Gorillaz now to us is not like four animated characters any more – it's more like an organisation of people doing new projects... That's my ideal model."


title: Gorillaz

text: Released on 3 March 2010, "Plastic Beach" debuted at #2 on both the UK Albums Chart and the US "Billboard" 200 chart, the band's highest placing debut chart position. The album was supported by the lead single "Stylo" featuring Mos Def and Bobby Womack released in January 2010 and the later singles "On Melancholy Hill" and "Rhinestone Eyes". To promote the album, the band embarked on the Escape to Plastic Beach Tour, the band's first world tour and also their first live performances in which the touring band performed fully in view of the audience on stage with no visual obstructions. The tour, which featured many of the collaborative artists from "Plastic Beach" and saw the touring band wearing naval attire, was later described by Albarn as having been extremely costly to produce, with the band barely breaking even on the shows, saying "I loved doing it, but economically it was a fucking disaster." The tour was preceded by headline performances at several international music festivals, including the Coachella and Glastonbury festivals. On 21 November 2010, while still on tour, the band released the non-album single "Doncamatic" featuring British singer Daley.


title: Gorillaz

text: During the North American leg of the Escape to Plastic Beach tour in the fall of 2010, Albarn continued recording Gorillaz songs entirely on his iPad. The recordings were later released as the album "The Fall", first released digitally on Christmas Day 2010 and later given a physical release on 19 April 2011. "The Fall" is also co-produced by Stephen Sedgwick, the mixer engineer of the band. Albarn said the album served as a diary of the American leg of the tour, explaining that the tracks were presented exactly as they were on the day they were written and recorded with no additional production or overdubs: "I literally made it on the road. I didn't write it before, I didn't prepare it. I just did it day by day as a kind of diary of my experience in America. If I left it until the New Year to release it then the cynics out there would say, 'Oh well, it's been tampered with', but if I put it out now they'd know that I haven't done anything because I've been on tour ever since." The band later released a "Gorillaz edition" of the Korg iElectribe music production app for iPad, featuring many of the same samples and sounds used by Albarn to create "The Fall".


title: Gorillaz

text: On 23 February 2012, Gorillaz released "DoYaThing", a single to promote a Gorillaz-branded collection of Converse shoes which were released shortly after. The song was a part of Converse's "Three Artists, One Song" project, with the two additional collaborators being James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem and André 3000 of Outkast. Two different edits of the song were released: a four-and-a-half minute radio edit released on Converse's website and the full 13-minute version of the song released on the Gorillaz website. Hewlett returned to direct the single's music video, featuring fictionalized animated versions of Murphy and André interacting with the Gorillaz' virtual members. The song received positive reviews from critics, with particular praise given to André 3000's contributions to the track.


title: Gorillaz

text: In April 2012, Albarn told "The Guardian" that he and Hewlett had fallen out and that future Gorillaz projects were "unlikely". Tension between the two had been building, partly due to a belief held by Hewlett that his contributions to Gorillaz were being minimised. Speaking to "The Guardian" in April 2017, Hewlett explained: "Damon had half the Clash on stage, and Bobby Womack and Mos Def and De La Soul, and fucking Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and Bashy and everyone else. It was the greatest band ever. And the screen on stage behind them seemed to get smaller every day. I'd say, ‘Have we got a new screen?’ and the tour manager was like, ‘No, it's the same screen.’ Because it seemed to me like it was getting smaller." Albarn gave his side of the story in a separate interview, saying "I think we were at a cross purposes somewhat on that last record ["Plastic Beach"], which is a shame. It was one of those things, the music and the videos weren't working as well together, but I felt we'd made a really good record and I was into it." On 25 April 2012, in an interview with Metro, Albarn was more optimistic about Gorillaz' future, saying that once he had worked out his differences with Hewlett, he was sure that they would make another record. In June 2013, Hewlett confirmed that he and Albarn planned to someday continue Gorillaz and record a follow-up album to "Plastic Beach", saying "We'll come back to it when the time is right."


title: Gorillaz

text: Following the release of "DoYaThing" and the publicization of Albarn and Hewlett's fall-out in 2012, Gorillaz entered a multiyear hiatus. During the hiatus, Albarn released a solo album, "Everyday Robots", scored stage productions and continued to record and tour with Blur, while Hewlett held art exhibitions and attempted to create a film project which was ultimately never realized. While on tour in support of "Everyday Robots" in 2014, Albarn signaled openness to returning to Gorillaz, telling "The National Post" that he "wouldn't mind having another stab at a Gorillaz record". Two months later he reported that he had "been writing quite a lot of songs on the road for Gorillaz". and at the end of 2014 confirmed in an interview with "The Sydney Morning Herald" that he was planning to record another Gorillaz album. Speaking about his relationship with Hewlett, Albarn said that the pair's well-publicised fall-out had helped their relationship in the long term. Hewlett described the moment when he and Albarn agreed to continue Gorillaz at an afterparty after one of Albarn's solo shows in 2014: "We'd had a bit to drink, and he said, 'Do you want to do another one?' And I said, 'Do you?' and he said, 'Do you?' And I said, 'Yeah, sure.' I started work on it straight away, learning to draw the characters again. I played around by myself for eight months while he was performing with Blur in 2015."


title: Gorillaz

text: Recording sessions for the band's fifth studio album "Humanz" began in late 2015 and continued through 2016, taking place in London, New York City, Paris and Jamaica. Albarn enlisted American hip-hop and house producer Anthony Khan, known by his stage name the Twilite Tone, to co-produce the album. Albarn chose Khan from a list of possible producers compiled by Parlophone, the band's record label after Albarn and Khan spoke via Skype. "Humanz" was also co-produced by Remi Kabaka Jr., a friend of Albarn's who had worked with him in the non-profit musical organization Africa Express and also has been the voice actor for the Gorillaz virtual band member Russel Hobbs since 2000. In conceptualizing the album, Albarn and Khan envisioned "Humanz" as being the soundtrack for "a party for the end of the world", with Albarn specifically imagining a future in which Donald Trump won the 2016 U.S. presidential election as context for the album's narrative (Trump becoming president was still considered an unlikely event at the time of recording), explaining "Let's use that as a kind of dark fantasy for this record, let's imagine the night Donald Trump wins the election and how we're all going to feel that night." Khan stated that "The idea of Donald Trump being president allowed us to create a narrative together. I suggested that the album should be about joy, pain and urgency. That was to be our state of mind before we even touched a keyboard or an MPC. Especially in American music, dare I say black music, there's a way of communicating joy that at the same time allows you to feel the struggle the person has been through. And the urgency is there because something needs to be done. So that was the mantra. I wanted to blend Damon, a Briton, with the joy and pain and struggle that African-American music can express." "Humanz" again featured a large cast of featured artists, including Popcaan, Vince Staples, DRAM, Jehnny Beth, Pusha T, Peven Everett, Danny Brown, Grace Jones and Mavis Staples, among others. The first track from the album released publicly was "Hallelujah Money" featuring Benjamin Clementine, released on 20 January 2017 with an accompanying video featuring Clementine. While not an official single, Albarn explained that the band chose to release the track on the day of Trump's inauguration because "It was meant to be something sung at the imaginary inauguration of Donald Trump, which turned out to be the real inauguration of Donald Trump, so we released it because we had imagined that happening and it did happen."


title: Gorillaz

text: "Humanz" was released on 28 April 2017, the band's first new studio album in 7 years. Featuring a "modern-sounding urban hip-hop/R&B sensibility", the album debuted at #2 on both the UK Album charts and the US "Billboard" 200. "Humanz" received generally positive reviews from critics, although received some criticism from fans and critics for what was perceived as a diminished presence from Albarn in contrast to the abundance of featured artists. The album was released in both standard and deluxe editions, with the deluxe edition featuring an additional 6 bonus tracks and was promoted by the lead single "Saturnz Barz" featuring Popcaan and the later single "Strobelite" featuring Peven Everett. The Hewlett-directed music video for "Saturnz Barz" made use of YouTube's 360-degree video format and reportedly cost $800,000 to create.


title: Gorillaz

text: The band embarked on the Humanz Tour to support the album from the summer of 2017 to early 2018. Like the band's previous tour, the Humanz Tour featured the touring band in full view of the audience with a large screen behind them displaying Hewlett-created visuals and featured several of the different collaborative artists from the band's history. The tour was preceded by a handful of European warm-up shows, including the first Demon Dayz Festival held on 10 June 2017 at the Dreamland Margate theme park, a Gorillaz curated music festival which was later repeated in Los Angeles in October 2018. On 8 June 2017 the band released the non-album single "Sleeping Powder" with an accompanying music video and on 3 November 2017 a "Super Deluxe" version of "Humanz", featuring an additional 14 unreleased tracks from the album's sessions, including alternative versions of previously released songs as well as the single "Garage Palace" featuring Little Simz.


title: Gorillaz

text: Albarn continued recording while on the road during the Humanz Tour, and mentioned in an interview with "Q Magazine" in September 2017 that he was planning on releasing the material as a future Gorillaz album. Comparing the production of the album to "The Fall", which was also recorded while the band was on tour, Albarn mentioned that "It will be a more complete record than "The Fall", but hopefully have that spontaneity." Albarn signaled his desire to complete and release the album quickly, adding that "I really like the idea of making new music and playing it live almost simultaneously" and "If we're going to do more Gorillaz we don't want to wait seven years because, y'know, we're getting on a bit now. The band later debuted a new song "Idaho", which was later included on the album, at a concert in Seattle on 30 September 2017 with Albarn saying it had been written in the days prior.


title: Gorillaz

text: During a break in the Humanz Tour in February 2018, Albarn returned to London where he worked with producer James Ford, known for his work with Arctic Monkeys and Florence and the Machine, and Kabaka Jr. to finish the newly written material, resulting in the band's sixth studio album "The Now Now" released on 29 June 2018. Featuring "simple, mostly upbeat songs" and 1980s new wave influences, the album was noted for its distinctly small list of featured artists compared to previous Gorillaz work, with only two tracks featuring any outside artists (the album's lead single "Humility" featuring George Benson and "Hollywood" featuring Snoop Dogg and Jamie Principle). Albarn mentioned that the few numbers of featured artists was partially due to the album's quick production, which in turn was a result of Albarn wanting to finish the album before the band's touring schedule resumed: "We've been very lucky to be offered all the festivals this year on the back of the last record ["Humanz"]... but I didn't want to do that unless I had something new to work with, so the only option was to make another record really quickly and not have lots of guests on it, because that takes a long time to organize; just do it all myself, really." Albarn also explained that with "The Now Now" he sought to make a Gorillaz album "where I'm just singing for once" and that the album is "pretty much just me singing, very sort of in the world of 2-D."


title: Gorillaz

text: The band's remaining 2018 live dates were billed as The Now Now Tour to support the album, and included a performance in Tokyo on 22 June 2018 billed as "The Now Now World Premiere" in which the band played the full album live for the first and only time, a performance which was later broadcast by Boiler Room. On 16 December 2019, the documentary "Gorillaz: Reject False Icons" was screened worldwide on a one-day theatrical release. Filmed and directed by Hewlett's son Denholm, the documentary showcases a behind-the-scenes look at the production of "Humanz" and "The Now Now" as well as the album's associated tours. One week after the film's theatrical release, a "Director's Cut" version of the film featuring additional footage was released on the official Gorillaz YouTube channel in three parts. In the credits for "Reject False Icons", Kabaka Jr. was listed as an official member of the band (labeled as "A&R/Producer") alongside Albarn and Hewlett for the first time.


title: Gorillaz

text: On 29 January 2020, the band announced its new project, "Song Machine". Eschewing the typical album format of releasing music, Song Machine is instead a web series that sees the band releasing one new song a month as "episodes" to the series, with 11 episodes releasing to comprise the first "season". Elaborating on the idea behind "Song Machine" in a radio interview shortly after the announcement of the project, Albarn explained that "We no longer kind of see ourselves as constrained to making albums. We can now make episodes and seasons." Each episode features previously unannounced guest musicians on new Gorillaz material, with the first being "Momentary Bliss", which was released on 31 January and features both British rapper Slowthai and the Kent-based punk rock duo Slaves.


title: Gorillaz

text: Upon the premiere of "Momentary Bliss", Albarn revealed that the group had been in the studio with Schoolboy Q and Sampa the Great among others, although he did say that these songs were likely to be saved for future episodes of "Song Machine". The group also teased a possible collaboration with Australian band Tame Impala on Instagram.


title: Gorillaz

text: On 27 February, the band released the second episode of "Song Machine" entitled "Désolé". The song features Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara. The third episode, "Aries", released on 9 April and featured Peter Hook and Georgia. The fourth track "How Far?" featuring Tony Allen and Skepta was released 2 May. This song was released without an accompanying music video as a tribute to Allen, who died on 30 April.


title: Gorillaz

text: On 26 May, Gorillaz announced the release of a new book titled "Gorillaz Almanac". The book comes in three editions: standard, deluxe and super deluxe, all of which were set to release on 23 October but has since been delayed to 22 December with a physical release of season one of "Song Machine" included with each copy.


title: Gorillaz

text: On 9 June, the band released "Friday 13th", the fourth episode of "Song Machine". The track features French-British rapper Octavian.


title: Gorillaz

text: On 20 July, the band released "Pac-Man", the fifth episode of "Song Machine", in honour of Pac-Man's 40th anniversary. The track features American rapper Schoolboy Q.


title: Gorillaz

text: On 9 September, the band released "Strange Timez", the sixth episode of "Song Machine". The track features Robert Smith, from the Cure. Gorillaz also announced the title and tracklist for "", released on 23 October 2020, featuring further guest appearances from Elton John, 6lack, JPEGMafia, Kano, Roxani Arias, Moonchild Sanelly and Chai, among others.


title: Gorillaz

text: On 1 October, the band released "The Pink Phantom", the seventh episode of "Song Machine". The track features Elton John and American R&B recording artist 6lack.


title: Gorillaz

text: Before the release of "", Gorillaz started a radio show on Apple Music called "Song Machine Radio" where each virtual character has a turn to invite special guests and play some of their favourite tunes.


title: Gorillaz

text: A few days from the release of "Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez", Albarn confirmed that the band already has a song for Season Two of "Song Machine" prepared for release, and also mentioned that the second part of the project will be released earlier than expected.


title: Gorillaz

text: On 5 November, the band released "The Valley of the Pagans", the eighth episode of "Song Machine". The track features American singer Beck. The music video is somewhat notorious for being the first major studio production filmed in "Grand Theft Auto V". The video ends with a reference to previous album, "Plastic Beach". For unknown reasons, the music video on the official Gorillaz YouTube channel was set to private just a few days after its initial premiere. On 9 March 2021, Gorillaz uploaded an alternative version of the music video to their official YouTube channel, which does not feature any gameplay from "Grand Theft Auto V".


title: Gorillaz

text: On 24 December, the band released "The Lost Chord", the ninth and final episode of the first season of "Song Machine". The track features British musician Leee John.


title: Gorillaz

text: On 26 March 2021, the band celebrated its debut album's 20th anniversary with oncoming reissues of their catalog and teases of non-fungible tokens; due to its impact on climate change, the latter was met with criticism by various sources and fans—some noting that the act contradicts the environmental themes of "Plastic Beach". No non-fungible tokens have since released. The band also announced a boxset, the "G Collection," containing six of their studio albums—excluding "The Fall"—for Record Store Day.


title: Gorillaz

text: On 10 August 2021, Gorillaz debuted three new songs, "Meanwhile" (featuring British rapper Jelani Blackman), "Jimmy Jimmy" (featuring British rapper AJ Tracey), and "Déjà Vu" (featuring Jamaican-British singer Alicaì Harley), during a free concert at The O Arena in London, England exclusively for National Health Service employees and their families. They then performed them again at the subsequent concert open to the public the next day (both of which served as the first live audience concerts of the Song Machine Tour). These three songs were announced to be tracks from a new EP entitled "Meanwhile", with the cover originally published on TikTok.


title: Gorillaz

text: On 17 September 2021, Albarn revealed that he had recorded a new Gorillaz song with Bad Bunny while in Jamaica, and, at the time, said it would be the first single for a new album, influenced by Latin America, releasing in 2022. The concept for the album would later change, with the song being announced at a later date. On 31 August 2022, the name of this song was revealed to be "Tormenta".


title: Gorillaz

text: Throughout 2022, Gorillaz went on a world tour in South America, Europe, Australia, and North America, where they debuted new material. In June 2022, the band began teasing the release of new material, with promotional displays and websites surfacing encouraging fans to sign up to be a part of "The Last Cult". The band released a new single regularly performed on tour called "Cracker Island", featuring Thundercat and produced with Greg Kurstin, on 22 June, with the music video being released on 28 July. Their scheduled performance at the first Splendour in the Grass festival in Queensland, Australia on 22 July was cancelled owing to torrential rain. In July 2022, they played at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre as part of Illuminate Adelaide, supported by Moonchild Sanelly. In August 2022, the band performed a new song "New Gold" featuring Tame Impala and Bootie Brown at All Points East in London. The single was then teased on the band's social media with links to pre-save the song on streaming services. On 31 August, the band released "New Gold" as their second single for their upcoming album, announced on the same day to be titled "Cracker Island", set to be released on 24 February 2023. The album, produced with Kurstin, also features appearances from Stevie Nicks, Bad Bunny, Beck, and Adeleye Omotayo. On 4 November, the band released the third single from "Cracker Island", "Baby Queen", which had been previously released on the "FIFA 23" soundtrack in September 2022. On 8 December, the band released the fourth single from "Cracker Island", "Skinny Ape", alongside the announcement of two virtual shows in Times Square and Piccadilly Circus on 17 and 18 December, respectively.


title: Gorillaz

text: Writers and critics have variously described Gorillaz as art pop, alternative rock, hip hop, electronic, trip hop, pop, dark pop, alternative hip hop, rap rock, indie rock, bedroom pop, dance-rock, new wave, funk, worldbeat, and experimental rock. The band's aesthetic and general approach has been described as postmodern. According to AllMusic, Gorillaz blend Britpop and hip-hop, while "The Guardian" described the band as "a sort of dub/hip-hop/lo-fi indie/world music hybrid". According to "PopMatters", the band's early work foreshadowed "the melding of hip-hop, rock, and electronic elements in pop music" that grew in significance in the next decade.


title: Gorillaz

text: Gorillaz’ main musical influences include Fishmans, Massive Attack, the Specials, Big Audio Dynamite, Public Image Ltd, Tom Tom Club, Fun Boy Three, Unkle, A Tribe Called Quest, and fellow collaborators De La Soul, as well as The Human League, The Kinks, XTC, Simple Minds, Sonic Youth, Pavement, Ween, Portishead, Beck, Wire, Fela Kuti, Sly and the Family Stone, Earth Wind and Fire, Augustus Pablo, Zapp, and DJ Kool Herc. Gorillaz’ primary visual influences include Hanna-Barbera, "Looney Tunes", "Mad" magazine, "The Simpsons", "2000 AD", and "Métal hurlant" ("Heavy Metal"). Furthermore, Hewlett has also cited European artists such as Carl Giles, Ronald Searle, Moebius, Tanino Liberatore, Mike McMahon, and Brendan McCarthy. The idea for Gorillaz was inspired by the many cartoon bands that came before them in the 1960s such as the Banana Splits, the Archies, Josie and the Pussycats, and Alvin and the Chipmunks, and real bands with fictional stage personas like ABC (circa "How to Be a ... Zillionaire!") and Silicon Teens.


title: Gorillaz

text: Musical artists who have been influenced by Gorillaz include Major Lazer, Dethklok, Rat Boy, Chromeo, Flume, Foster the People, The 1975, 5 Seconds of Summer, Awolnation, Paramore, Grimes, Kesha, A.G. Cook, Finneas, Oliver Tree, Flatbush Zombies, Vic Mensa, IDK, Trippie Redd, The Internet, ASAP Rocky, Lupe Fiasco, Brockhampton, Odd Future and Billie Eilish, who was joined by Albarn to sing her song, "Getting Older", and Gorillaz' song, "Feel Good Inc." with Posdnuos of De La Soul. Gorillaz have also influenced animated series such as "The Amazing World of Gumball", "Glitch Techs", "Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", "Motorcity", "", "Teen Titans", and "Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts", as well as video games like "Borderlands", "Sunset Overdrive", "No Straight Roads", "Battlefield", and "League of Legends".


title: Gorillaz

text: Gorillaz have collaborated with a number of brands, including Motorola, O, Internet Explorer 9, Converse, and Jaguar Cars. They have also been featured in fashion magazines such as "Maxim", "Nylon", and "Numéro". The band's use of the internet and digital media for promotion as early as 2000 has been touched on in retrospective reviews for being ahead of its time. "Dazed" magazine has summarised Gorillaz's impact as "completely reinvent[ing] the notion of what a band could be".


title: Ten Commandments

text: The Ten Commandments (Biblical Hebrew עשרת הדברים \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, "aséret ha-dvarím", lit. The Decalogue, The Ten Words, cf. Mishnaic Hebrew עשרת הדיברות \ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדִּבְּרוֹת, "aséret ha-dibrót", lit. The Decalogue, The Ten Words), are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship that play a fundamental role in Judaism and Christianity. The text of the Ten Commandments appears twice in the Hebrew Bible: at Exodus and Deuteronomy .


title: Ten Commandments

text: According to the Book of Exodus in the Torah, the Ten Commandments were revealed to Moses at Mount Sinai and inscribed by the finger of God on two tablets of stone kept in the Ark of the Covenant.


title: Ten Commandments

text: Scholars disagree about when the Ten Commandments were written and by whom, with some modern scholars suggesting that they were likely modeled on Hittite and Mesopotamian laws and treaties.


title: Ten Commandments

text: The Ten Commandments, called (transliterated ) in Biblical Hebrew, are mentioned at Exodus , Deuteronomy and Deuteronomy . In all sources, the terms are translatable as "the ten words", "the ten sayings", or "the ten matters".


title: Ten Commandments

text: In the Septuagint (or LXX), the "ten words" was translated as "Decalogue", which is derived from Greek , "dekalogos", the latter meaning and referring to the Greek translation (in accusative) , . This term is also sometimes used in English, in addition to Ten Commandments. The Tyndale and Coverdale English biblical translations used "nine verses". The Geneva Bible used "ten commandments", which was followed by the Bishops' Bible and the Authorized Version (the "King James" version) as "ten commandments". Most major English versions use the word "commandments".


title: Ten Commandments

text: The stone tablets, as opposed to the ten commandments inscribed on them, are called , "Lukhot HaBrit", meaning "the tablets of the covenant".


title: Ten Commandments

text: The biblical narrative of the revelation at Sinai begins in after the arrival of the children of Israel at Mount Sinai (also called Horeb). On the morning of the third day of their encampment, "there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud", and the people assembled at the base of the mount. After "the came down upon mount Sinai", Moses went up briefly and returned to prepare the people, and then in "God spoke" to all the people the words of the covenant, that is, the "ten commandments" as it is written. Modern biblical scholarship differs as to whether describes the people of Israel as having directly heard all or some of the decalogue, or whether the laws are only passed to them through Moses.


title: Ten Commandments

text: The people were afraid to hear more and moved "afar off", and Moses responded with "Fear not." Nevertheless, he drew near the "thick darkness" where "the presence of the Lord" was to hear the additional statutes and "judgments", all which he "wrote" in the "book of the covenant" which he read to the people the next morning, and they agreed to be obedient and do all that the had said. Moses escorted a select group consisting of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and "seventy of the elders of Israel" to a location on the mount where they worshipped "afar off" and they "saw the God of Israel" above a "paved work" like clear sapphire stone.


title: Ten Commandments

text: The mount was covered by the cloud for six days, and on the seventh day Moses went into the midst of the cloud and was "in the mount forty days and forty nights." And Moses said, "the delivered unto me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly." Before the full forty days expired, the children of Israel collectively decided that something had happened to Moses, and compelled Aaron to fashion a golden calf, and he "built an altar before it" and the people "worshipped" the calf.


title: Ten Commandments

text: After the full forty days, Moses and Joshua came down from the mountain with the tablets of stone: "And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tablets out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount." After the events in chapters 32 and 33, the told Moses, "Hew thee two tablets of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tablets the words that were in the first tablets, which thou brakest." "And he wrote on the tablets, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the gave them unto me." These tablets were later placed in the ark of the covenant.


title: Ten Commandments

text: Although both the Masoretic Text and the Dead Sea Scrolls have the passages of Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 divided into ten specific commandments formatted with space between them corresponding to the Lutheran counting in the chart below, many Modern English Bible translations give the appearance of more than ten imperative statements in each passage.


title: Ten Commandments

text: Different religious traditions categorize the seventeen verses of and their parallels in into ten commandments in different ways as shown in the table. Some suggest that the number ten is a choice to aid memorization rather than a matter of theology.


title: Ten Commandments

text: There are two major approaches to categorizing the commandments. One approach distinguishes the prohibition against other gods (verse 3) from the prohibition against images (verses 4–6):


title: Ten Commandments

text: Another approach combines verses 3–6, the prohibition against images and the prohibition against other gods, into a single command while still maintaining ten commandments. Samaritan and Jewish traditions include another commandment, whereas Christian traditions will divide coveting the neighbor's wife and house.


title: Ten Commandments

text: The Ten Commandments concern matters of fundamental importance in Judaism and Christianity: the greatest obligation (to worship only God), the greatest injury to a person (murder), the greatest injury to family bonds (adultery), the greatest injury to commerce and law (bearing false witness), the greatest inter-generational obligation (honour to parents), the greatest obligation to community (truthfulness), the greatest injury to movable property (theft).


title: Ten Commandments

text: The Ten Commandments are written with room for varying interpretation, reflecting their role as a summary of fundamental principles. They are not as explicit or as detailed as rules or as many other biblical laws and commandments, because they provide guiding principles that apply universally, across changing circumstances. They do not specify punishments for their violation. Their precise import must be worked out in each separate situation.


title: Ten Commandments

text: The Bible indicates the special status of the Ten Commandments among all other Torah laws in several ways:


title: Ten Commandments

text: The Ten Commandments form the basis of Jewish law, stating God's universal and timeless standard of right and wrong – unlike the rest of the 613 commandments in the Torah, which include, for example, various duties and ceremonies such as the kashrut dietary laws, and the rituals to be performed by priests in the Holy Temple. Jewish tradition considers the Ten Commandments the theological basis for the rest of the commandments. Philo, in his four-book work "The Special Laws", treated the Ten Commandments as headings under which he discussed other related commandments. Similarly, in "The Decalogue" he stated that "under [the "commandment… against adulterers"] many other commands are conveyed by implication, such as that against seducers, that against practisers of unnatural crimes, that against all who live in debauchery, that against all men who indulge in illicit and incontinent connections." Others, such as Rabbi Saadia Gaon, have also made groupings of the commandments according to their links with the Ten Commandments.


title: Ten Commandments

text: According to Conservative Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, Ten Commandments are virtually entwined, in that the breaking of one leads to the breaking of another. Echoing an earlier rabbinic comment found in the commentary of Rashi to the Songs of Songs (4:5) Ginzberg explained—there is also a great bond of union between the first five commandments and the last five. The first commandment: "I am the Lord, thy God," corresponds to the sixth: "Thou shalt not kill," for the murderer slays the image of God. The second: "Thou shalt have no strange gods before me," corresponds to the seventh: "Thou shalt not commit adultery," for conjugal faithlessness is as grave a sin as idolatry, which is faithlessness to God. The third commandment: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain," corresponds to the eighth: "Thou shalt not steal," for stealing results in a false oath in God's name. The fourth: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," corresponds to the ninth: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor," for he who bears false witness against his neighbor commits as grave a sin as if he had borne false witness against God, saying that He had not created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day (the holy Sabbath). The fifth commandment: "Honor thy father and thy mother," corresponds to the tenth: "Covet not thy neighbor's wife," for one who indulges this lust produces children who will not honor their true father, but will consider a stranger their father.


title: Ten Commandments

text: The traditional Rabbinical Jewish belief is that the observance of these commandments and the other "mitzvot" are required solely of the Jewish people and that the laws incumbent on humanity in general are outlined in the seven Noahide laws, several of which overlap with the Ten Commandments. In the era of the Sanhedrin transgressing any one of six of the Ten Commandments theoretically carried the death penalty, the exceptions being the First Commandment, honouring your father and mother, saying God's name in vain, and coveting, though this was rarely enforced due to a large number of stringent evidentiary requirements imposed by the oral law.


title: Ten Commandments

text: The arrangement of the commandments on the two tablets is interpreted in different ways in the classical Jewish tradition. Rabbi Hanina ben Gamaliel says that each tablet contained five commandments, "but the Sages say ten on one tablet and ten on the other", that is, that the tablets were duplicates. This can be compared to diplomatic treaties of the ancient Near East, in which a copy was made for each party.


title: Ten Commandments

text: According to the Talmud, the compendium of traditional Rabbinic Jewish law, tradition, and interpretation, one interpretation of the biblical verse "the tablets were written on both their sides", is that the carving went through the full thickness of the tablets, yet was miraculously legible from both sides.


title: Ten Commandments

text: The Mishna records that during the period of the Second Temple, the Ten Commandments were recited daily, before the reading of the Shema Yisrael (as preserved, for example, in the Nash Papyrus, a Hebrew manuscript fragment from 150 to 100 BC found in Egypt, containing a version of the ten commandments and the beginning of the Shema); but that this practice was abolished in the synagogues so as not to give ammunition to heretics who claimed that they were the only important part of Jewish law, or to dispel a claim by early Christians that "only" the Ten Commandments were handed down at Mount Sinai rather than the whole Torah.


title: Ten Commandments

text: In later centuries rabbis continued to omit the Ten Commandments from daily liturgy in order to prevent confusion among Jews that they are "only" bound by the Ten Commandments, and not also by many other biblical and Talmudic laws, such as the requirement to observe holy days other than the sabbath.


title: Ten Commandments

text: Today, the Ten Commandments are heard in the synagogue three times a year: as they come up during the readings of Exodus and Deuteronomy, and during the festival of Shavuot. The Exodus version is read in "parashat Yitro" around late January–February, and on the festival of Shavuot, and the Deuteronomy version in "parashat Va'etchanan" in August–September. In some traditions, worshipers rise for the reading of the Ten Commandments to highlight their special significance though many rabbis, including Maimonides, have opposed this custom since one may come to think that the Ten Commandments are more important than the rest of the Mitzvot.


title: Ten Commandments

text: In printed Chumashim, as well as in those in manuscript form, the Ten Commandments carry two sets of cantillation marks. The "ta'am 'elyon" (upper accentuation), which makes each Commandment into a separate verse, is used for public Torah reading, while the "ta'am tachton" (lower accentuation), which divides the text into verses of more even length, is used for private reading or study. The verse numbering in Jewish Bibles follows the "ta'am tachton". In Jewish Bibles the references to the Ten Commandments are therefore and .


title: Ten Commandments

text: The Samaritan Pentateuch varies in the Ten Commandments passages, both in that the Samaritan Deuteronomical version of the passage is much closer to that in Exodus, and in that Samaritans count as nine commandments what others count as ten. The Samaritan tenth commandment is on the sanctity of Mount Gerizim.


title: Ten Commandments

text: Most traditions of Christianity hold that the Ten Commandments have divine authority and continue to be valid, though they have different interpretations and uses of them. The Apostolic Constitutions, which implore believers to "always remember the ten commands of God," reveal the importance of the Decalogue in the early Church. Through most of Christian history the decalogue was considered a summary of God's law and standard of behaviour, central to Christian life, piety, and worship.


title: Ten Commandments

text: Distinctions in the order and importance of said order continues to be a theological debate, with texts within the New Testament confirming the more traditional ordering, which follows the Septuagint of adultery, murder and theft; as opposed to the currently held order of the Masoretic of murder, adultery, theft.


title: Ten Commandments

text: During his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explicitly referenced the prohibitions against murder and adultery. In Jesus repeated five of the Ten Commandments, followed by that commandment called "the second" () after the first and great commandment.


title: Ten Commandments

text: In his Epistle to the Romans, Paul the Apostle also mentioned five of the Ten Commandments and associated them with the neighbourly love commandment.


title: Ten Commandments

text: In Catholicism, Jesus freed Christians from the rest of Jewish religious law, but not from their obligation to keep the Ten Commandments. It has been said that they are to the moral order what the creation story is to the natural order.


title: Ten Commandments

text: According to the "Catechism of the Catholic Church"—the official exposition of the Catholic Church's Christian beliefs—the Commandments are considered essential for spiritual good health and growth, and serve as the basis for social justice. Church teaching of the Commandments is largely based on the Old and New Testaments and the writings of the early Church Fathers. In the New Testament, Jesus acknowledged their validity and instructed his disciples to go further, demanding a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees. Summarized by Jesus into two "great commandments" that teach the love of God and love of neighbour, they instruct individuals on their relationships with both.


title: Ten Commandments

text: The great commandments contain the Law of the Gospel, summed up in the Golden Rule. The Law of the Gospel is expressed particularly in the Sermon on the Mount. The "Catechism of the Catholic Church" explains that, "the Law of the Gospel fulfills the commandments of the Law. The Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, far from abolishing or devaluing the moral prescriptions of the Old Law, releases their hidden potential and has new demands arise from them: it reveals their entire devine and human truth. It does not add new external precepts, but proceeds to reform the heart, the root of human acts, where man chooses between the pure and the impure, where faith, hope, and charity are formed and with them the other virtues." The New Law "fulfills, refines, surpasses, and leads the Old Law to its perfection."


title: Ten Commandments

text: The Eastern Orthodox Church holds its moral truths to be chiefly contained in the Ten Commandments. A confession begins with the Confessor reciting the Ten Commandments and asking the penitent which of them he has broken.


title: Ten Commandments

text: After rejecting the moral theology of Roman Catholicism, giving more importance to biblical law and the gospel, early Protestant theologians continued to take the Ten Commandments as the starting point of Christian moral life. Different versions of Christianity have varied in how they have translated the bare principles into the specifics that make up a full Christian ethic.


title: Ten Commandments

text: The Lutheran division of the commandments follows the one established by St. Augustine, following the then current synagogue scribal division. The first three commandments govern the relationship between God and humans, the fourth through eighth govern public relationships between people, and the last two govern private thoughts. See Luther's Small Catechism and Large Catechism.


title: Ten Commandments

text: The "Articles of the Church of England, Revised and altered by the Assembly of Divines, at Westminster, in the year 1643" state that "no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral. By the moral law, we understand all the Ten Commandments taken in their full extent." The Westminster Confession, held by Presbyterian Churches, holds that the moral law contained in the Ten Commandments "does forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof".


title: Ten Commandments

text: The moral law contained in the Ten Commandments, according to the founder of the Methodist movement John Wesley, was instituted from the beginning of the world and is written on the hearts of all people.


title: Ten Commandments

text: As with the Reformed view, Wesley held that the moral law, which is contained in the Ten Commandments, stands today:


title: Ten Commandments

text: In keeping with Wesleyan covenant theology, "while the ceremonial law was abolished in Christ and the whole Mosaic dispensation itself was concluded upon the appearance of Christ, the moral law remains a vital component of the covenant of grace, having Christ as its perfecting end." As such, in Methodism, an "important aspect of the pursuit of sanctification is the careful following" of the Ten Commandments.


title: Ten Commandments

text: The Ten Commandments are a summary of the requirements of a works covenant (called the "Old Covenant"), given on Mount Sinai to the nascent nation of Israel. The Old Covenant is fulfilled by Christ at the cross. Unbelievers are still under the Law. The law reveals man's sin and need for the salvation that is Jeshua. Repentance from sin and faith in Christ for salvation is the point of the entire Bible. They do reflect the eternal character of God, and serve as a paragon of morality.


title: Ten Commandments

text: According to the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jesus completed rather than rejected the Mosaic law. The Ten Commandments are considered eternal gospel principles necessary for exaltation. They appear in the Book of Mosiah 12:34–36, 13:15–16, 13:21–24 and Doctrine and Covenants. According to the Book of Mosiah, a prophet named Abinadi taught the Ten Commandments in the court of King Noah and was martyred for his righteousness. Abinadi knew the Ten Commandments from the brass plates.


title: Ten Commandments

text: In an October 2011 address, the Church president and prophet Thomas S. Monson taught "The Ten Commandments are just that—commandments. They are not suggestions." In that same talk he used small quotations listing the numbering and selection of the commandments. This and other sources don't include the prologue, making it most consistent with the Septuagint numbering.


title: Ten Commandments

text: A splinter group of the Church called the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite)" have a belief similar to the Samaritans where they have the entire Ten Commandments in their scripture where others only have nine. The Strangite fourth Commandment is "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." The Strangite's founder and namesake James Strang wrote in "Note on the Decalogue" as part of the Book of the Law of the Lord (a Strangite holy book) that no other version of the Decalogue contains more than nine commandments and speculated that his fourth Commandment was omitted from other works perhaps as early as Josephus' time (circa 37-100 AD).


title: Ten Commandments

text: The receiving of the Ten Commandments by Prophet Musa (Moses) is dealt with in much detail in Islamic tradition with the meeting of Moses with God on Mount Sinai described in Surah A'raf (7:142-145). The Revealing of the Tablets on which were the Commandments of God is described in the following verse:


title: Ten Commandments

text: The Tablets are further alluded to in verses 7:150, when Moses threw the Tablets down in anger at seeing the Israelites' worshipping of the golden calf, and in 7:154 when he picked up the Tablets having recovered from his anger:


title: Ten Commandments

text: Quranic reference to the ten commandments can be found in chapter 2 verses 83 and 84 "And [recall] when We took the covenant from the Children of Israel, [enjoining upon them], "Do not worship except Allah (1); and to parents do good (2) and to relatives (3), orphans (4), and the needy (5). And speak to people good words (6) and establish prayer (7) and give Zakat (8)." Then you turned away, except a few of you, and you were refusing." "And [recall] when We took your covenant, [saying], "Do not shed each other's blood (9) or evict one another from your homes (10)." Then you acknowledged [this] while you were witnessing"


title: Ten Commandments

text: Three verses of Surah An'am (6:151–153) are widely taken to be a reinstatement (or revised version) of the Ten Commandments either as revealed to Moses originally or as they are to be taken by Muslims now:


title: Ten Commandments

text: Evidence for these verses having some relation to Moses and the Ten Commandments is from the verse which immediately follows them:


title: Ten Commandments

text: According to a narration in Mustadrak Hakim, Ibn Abbas, a prominent narrator of Israiliyat traditions said, "In Surah Al-An`am, there are clear Ayat, and they are the Mother of the Book (the Qur'an)." He then recited the above verses.


title: Ten Commandments

text: The Abrahamic religions observe the Sabbath in various ways. In Judaism it is observed on Saturday (reckoned from dusk to dusk). In Christianity, it is sometimes observed on Saturday, sometimes on Sunday, and sometimes not at all (non-Sabbatarianism). Observing the Sabbath on Sunday, the day of resurrection, gradually became the dominant Christian practice from the Jewish-Roman wars onward. The Church's general repudiation of Jewish practices during this period is apparent in the Council of Laodicea (4th century AD) where Canons 37–38 state: "It is not lawful to receive portions sent from the feasts of Jews or heretics, nor to feast together with them" and "It is not lawful to receive unleavened bread from the Jews, nor to be partakers of their impiety". Canon 29 of the Laodicean council specifically refers to the sabbath: "Christians must not judaize by resting on the [Jewish] Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord's Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ."


title: Ten Commandments

text: Multiple translations exist of the fifth/sixth commandment; the Hebrew words ("lo tirtzach") are variously translated as "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not murder".


title: Ten Commandments

text: The imperative is against unlawful killing resulting in bloodguilt. The Hebrew Bible contains numerous prohibitions against unlawful killing, but does not prohibit killing in the context of warfare (), capital punishment () or a (), which are considered justified. The New Testament is in agreement that murder is a grave moral evil, and references the Old Testament view of bloodguilt.


title: Ten Commandments

text: German Old Testament scholar Albrecht Alt: "Das Verbot des Diebstahls im Dekalog" (1953), suggested that the commandment translated as "thou shalt not steal" was originally intended against stealing people—against abductions and slavery, in agreement with the Talmudic interpretation of the statement as "thou shalt not kidnap" (Sanhedrin 86a).


title: Ten Commandments

text: In Judaism there is a prohibition against making or worshipping an idol or a representation of God, but there is no restriction on art or simple depictions unrelated to God. Islam has a stronger prohibition, banning not just representations of God, but also in some cases of Muhammad, humans and, in some interpretations, any living creature.


title: Ten Commandments

text: In the non-canonical Gospel of Barnabas, it is claimed that Jesus stated that idolatry is the greatest sin as it divests a man fully of faith, and hence of God. The words attributed to Jesus prohibit not only worshipping statues of wood or stone; but also statues of flesh. ""...all which a man loves, for which he leaves everything else but that, is his god, thus the glutton and drunkard has for his idol his own flesh, the fornicator has for his idol the harlot and the greedy has for his idol silver and gold, and so the same for every other sinner."" Idolatory was thus the basic sin, which manifested in various acts or thoughts, which displace the primacy of God. However, the Gospel of Barnabas does not form part of the Christian bible. It is known only from 16th- and 17th-century manuscripts, and frequently reflects Islamic rather than Christian understandings, so it cannot be taken as authoritative on Christian views.


title: Ten Commandments

text: In Christianity's earliest centuries, some Christians had informally adorned their homes and places of worship with images of Christ and the saints, which others thought inappropriate. No church council had ruled on whether such practices constituted idolatry. The controversy reached crisis level in the 8th century, during the period of iconoclasm: the smashing of icons, and again in the Middle Ages, becoming a critical point of contention in the Protestant Reformation.


title: Ten Commandments

text: In 726 Emperor Leo III ordered all images removed from all churches; in 730 a council forbade veneration of images, citing the Second Commandment; in 787 the Seventh Ecumenical Council reversed the preceding rulings, condemning iconoclasm and sanctioning the veneration of images; in 815 Leo V called yet another council, which reinstated iconoclasm; in 843 Empress Theodora again reinstated veneration of icons. This mostly settled the matter until the Reformation, when John Calvin declared that the ruling of the Seventh Ecumenical Council "emanated from Satan". Protestant iconoclasts at this time destroyed statues, pictures, stained glass, and artistic masterpieces.


title: Ten Commandments

text: The Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates Theodora's restoration of the icons every year on the First Sunday of Great Lent. Eastern Orthodox tradition teaches that while images of God, the Father, remain prohibited, depictions of Jesus as the incarnation of God as a visible human are permissible. To emphasize the theological importance of the incarnation, the Orthodox Church encourages the use of icons in church and private devotions, but prefers a two-dimensional depiction as a reminder of this theological aspect. Icons depict the spiritual dimension of their subject rather than attempting a naturalistic portrayal. In modern use (usually as a result of Roman Catholic influence), more naturalistic images and images of the Father, however, also appear occasionally in Orthodox churches, but statues, i.e. three-dimensional depictions, continue to be banned.


title: Ten Commandments

text: This commandment forbade male Israelites from having sexual intercourse with the wife of another Israelite; the prohibition did not extend to their own slaves. Sexual intercourse between an Israelite man, married or not, and a woman who was neither married nor betrothed was not considered adultery. This concept of adultery stems from a society that was not strictly monogamous, where the patriarchal economic aspect of Israelite marriage gave the husband an exclusive right to his wife, whereas the wife, as the husband's possession, did not have an exclusive right to her husband.


title: Ten Commandments

text: Louis Ginzberg argued that the tenth commandment ("Covet not thy neighbor's wife") is directed against a sin which may lead to a trespassing of all Ten Commandments.


title: Ten Commandments

text: Julius Wellhausen's documentary hypothesis suggests that Exodus 20–23 and 34 "might be regarded as the document which formed the starting point of the religious history of Israel." Deuteronomy 5 then reflects King Josiah's attempt to link the document produced by his court to the older Mosaic tradition.


title: Ten Commandments

text: In a 2002 analysis of the history of this position, Bernard M. Levinson argued that this reconstruction assumes a Christian perspective, and dates back to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's polemic against Judaism, which asserted that religions evolve from the more ritualistic to the more ethical. Goethe thus argued that the Ten Commandments revealed to Moses at Mount Sinai would have emphasized rituals, and that the "ethical" Decalogue Christians recite in their own churches was composed at a later date, when Israelite prophets had begun to prophesy the coming of the messiah. Levinson points out that there is no evidence, internal to the Hebrew Bible or in external sources, to support this conjecture. He concludes that its vogue among later critical historians represents the persistence of the idea that the supersession of Judaism by Christianity is part of a longer history of progress from the ritualistic to the ethical.


title: Ten Commandments

text: By the 1930s, historians who accepted the basic premises of multiple authorship had come to reject the idea of an orderly evolution of Israelite religion. Critics instead began to suppose that law and ritual could be of equal importance, while taking different form, at different times. This means that there is no longer any "a priori" reason to believe that Exodus 20:2–17 and Exodus 34:10–28 were composed during different stages of Israelite history. For example, critical historian John Bright also dates the Jahwist texts to the tenth century BC, but believes that they express a theology that "had already been normalized in the period of the Judges" (i.e., of the tribal alliance). He concurs about the importance of the decalogue as "a central feature in the covenant that brought together Israel into being as a people" but views the parallels between Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, along with other evidence, as reason to believe that it is relatively close to its original form and Mosaic in origin.


title: Ten Commandments

text: According to John Bright, however, there is an important distinction between the Decalogue and the "book of the covenant" (Exodus 21–23 and 34:10–24). The Decalogue, he argues, was modelled on the suzerainty treaties of the Hittites (and other Mesopotamian Empires), that is, represents the relationship between God and Israel as a relationship between king and vassal, and enacts that bond.


title: Ten Commandments

text: "The prologue of the Hittite treaty reminds his vassals of his benevolent acts.. (compare with Exodus 20:2 "I am the your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery"). The Hittite treaty also stipulated the obligations imposed by the ruler on his vassals, which included a prohibition of relations with peoples outside the empire, or enmity between those within." (Exodus 20:3: "You shall have no other gods before Me"). Viewed as a treaty rather than a law code, its purpose is not so much to regulate human affairs as to define the scope of the king's power.


title: Ten Commandments

text: Julius Morgenstern argued that Exodus 34 is distinct from the Jahwist document, identifying it with king Asa's reforms in 899 BC. Bright, however, believes that like the Decalogue this text has its origins in the time of the tribal alliance. The book of the covenant, he notes, bears a greater similarity to Mesopotamian law codes (e.g. the Code of Hammurabi which was inscribed on a stone stele). He argues that the function of this "book" is to move from the realm of treaty to the realm of law: "The Book of the Covenant (Ex., chs. 21 to 23; cf. ch. 34), which is no official state law, but a description of normative Israelite judicial procedure in the days of the Judges, is the best example of this process." According to Bright, then, this body of law too predates the monarchy.


title: Ten Commandments

text: Archaeologists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman argue that "the astonishing composition came together… in the seventh century BC". An even later date (after 586 BC) is suggested by David H. Aaron.


title: Ten Commandments

text: Exodus 34:28 identifies a different list, that of Exodus 34:11–27, as the Ten Commandments. Since this passage does not prohibit murder, adultery, theft, etc., but instead deals with the proper worship of Yahweh, some scholars call it the "Ritual Decalogue", and disambiguate the Ten Commandments of traditional understanding as the "Ethical Decalogue".


title: Ten Commandments

text: Richard Elliott Friedman argues that the Ten Commandments at Exodus 20:1–17 "does not appear to belong to any of the major sources. It is likely to be an independent document, which was inserted here by the Redactor." In his view, the Covenant Code follows that version of the Ten Commandments in the northern Israel E narrative. In the J narrative in Exodus 34 the editor of the combined story known as the Redactor (or RJE), adds in an explanation that these are a replacement for the earlier tablets which were shattered. "In the combined JE text, it would be awkward to picture God just commanding Moses to make some tablets, as if there were no history to this matter, so RJE adds the explanation that these are a replacement for the earlier tablets that were shattered."


title: Ten Commandments

text: He writes that Exodus 34:14–26 is the J text of the Ten Commandments: "The first two commandments and the sabbath commandment have parallels in the other versions of the Ten Commandments. (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5). … The other seven commandments here are completely different." He suggests that differences in the J and E versions of the Ten Commandments story are a result of power struggles in the priesthood. The writer has Moses smash the tablets "because this raised doubts about the Judah's central religious shrine".


title: Ten Commandments

text: According to Kaufmann, the Decalogue and the book of the covenant represent two ways of manifesting God's presence in Israel: the Ten Commandments taking the archaic and material form of stone tablets kept in the ark of the covenant, while the book of the covenant took oral form to be recited to the people.


title: Ten Commandments

text: Several interpretations of the Commandments seem to have problems for modern people living in free societies, like capital punishment for blasphemy, idolatry, apostasy, adultery, cursing one own's parents, and Sabbath-breaking.


title: Ten Commandments

text: During an 1846 uprising, now known as the Galician slaughter, by impoverished and famished Galician Eastern European peasants (serfs) directed against szlachta (Polish nobles) because of their oppression (for example, manorial prisons), a popular rumor had it that the Austrian Emperor had abolished the Ten Commandants, which the peasants took as permission and religious justification to massacre the szlachta – the prime representatives and beneficiaries of the crown in Austrian Galicia. This uprising is credited with helping to bring on the demise, in 1848, of serfdom with corvée labor in Galicia.


title: Ten Commandments

text: European Protestants replaced some visual art in their churches with plaques of the Ten Commandments after the Reformation. In England, such "Decalogue boards" also represented the English monarch's emphasis on rule of royal law within the churches. The United States Constitution forbids establishment of religion by law; however images of Moses holding the tablets of the Decalogue, along other religious figures including Solomon, Confucius, and Muhammad holding the Quran, are sculpted on the north and south friezes of the pediment of the Supreme Court building in Washington. Images of the Ten Commandments have long been contested symbols for the relationship of religion to national law.


title: Ten Commandments

text: In the 1950s and 1960s the Fraternal Order of Eagles placed possibly thousands of Ten Commandments displays in courthouses and school rooms, including many stone monuments on courthouse property. Because displaying the commandments can reflect a sectarian position if they are numbered, the Eagles developed an ecumenical version that omitted the numbers, as on the monument at the Texas capitol. Hundreds of monuments were also placed by director Cecil B. DeMille as a publicity stunt to promote his 1956 film "The Ten Commandments". Placing the plaques and monuments to the Ten Commandments in and around government buildings was another expression of mid-twentieth-century U.S. civil religion, along with adding the phrase "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance.