DAMON'S MONKEY BUSINESS 26|07|01 Blur singer Damon Albarn was having a dig at the music industry when he put together a band made up of cartoon characters. But the joke has backfired with his animated group Gorillaz this week being nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, a major industry award. Damon had set out to expose the manufactured nature of acts like Hear'Say and Westlife. But the Gorillaz have been so successful that they are being hailed as the biggest and best thing in pop. They are 3/1 favourites to win the award. Albarn and his collaborators were so horrified when Gorillaz were put up for the prize that they rejected their nomination. But with the possibility of up to 500,000 extra sales at stake from the Mercury publicity, their record company Parlophone stepped in to insist they remain in the running. There is also a £20,000 prize. Albarn started Gorillaz with cartoonist pal Jamie Hewlett last year. He saw it as a way to stick two fingers up to the increasing blandness of the charts. He said: "This is not novelty. In fact it's quite the opposite. We see Gorillaz not as just another pop act but a complete subversion of current trends. "Within a year, I bet the charts will be full of animated bands. "Pop, when it works, is the best form of expression we have in our culture. It just seems such a shame there's this parody of the whole thing going on. "Gorillaz works because we're not, excuse the pun, trying to ape anybody." The four band characters - 2D, Murdoc, Russel and Noodle - are really Albarn's mates hiding behind made-up characters. Their videos are all cartoons and when the band perform live fans have to settle for seeing the animated characters on a huge screen. Hewlett, who draws the characters, said: "We are revolutionaries changing the face of pop." Record-buyers have certainly bought into the joke. Gorillaz have already had two hit singles, sold more than 300,000 copies of their album, Gorillaz, in the UK and become the highest charting Brit band in the U.S. for two years. While Hewlett draws the characters, Albarn looks after the music - an infectious mix of funk and hip-hop produced by Dan the Automator. With Albarn singing and Cuban legend Ibrahim Ferrer, San Francisco rapper Del Tha Funkee Homosapien and underground rapper Dr Octagon on backing. The cartoon band are: Murdoc, snaggle-toothed Svengali of Gorillaz. The self-taught bassist's flop fringe disguises a mind like a rusty steel trap. 2D is lead singer and keyboard wizard who was hit twice on the head when young. A sweetheart with a blank sheet of paper where a brain should be. People think he is cool but he just has a migraine. Russel, a hip-hop hard man from the States, draws upon spooky spirit mates to help guide his beats. The only real musician. Noodle, the ten-year-old from Japan arrived in a crate. She is a kick-ass riff hero, the Asian axe princess, a guitarist with attitude. Rejecting the Mercury nomination, a statement from Murdoc read: "Mercury Award? Sounds a bit heavy man! Y'know, sorta like carrying a dead albatross round your neck for eternity. No thanks man! Why don't you nominate some other poor Muppet?" NME news chief Jody Thompson said yesterday: "There's no denying Gorillaz are a great act. But it is yet to be seen whether this is a typical dig at the industry by Damon or a ploy by the record company to boost sales." Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett