Gorillaz were, from the very beginning, as much conceptual art as they were a musical group. A collaboration between Albarn and visual artist Jaimie Hewlett, the project was conceived as a "virtual band" that could comment on the empty and manufactured nature of popular culture. They quickly expanded into videos, books, comics, and games which detailed a complex and surreal mythology and engaged with a variety of social and political issues. But Plastic Beach took this to a new level.

Damon Albarn's encounter with plastic pollution at Hallsands Beach inspired the album's meditations on the Anthropocene - an epoch marked by significant human impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems. The book positions Plastic Beach as a concept album that reflects on the Anthropocene, combining commentary on environmental degradation and consumer culture with attempts to imagine a future beyond the rapacity and destructiveness of this era.