FEATURE:
A Buyer’s Guide
Part Seventy-Seven: Moby
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IN this A Buyer’s Guide…
I am concentrating on the superb Moby. He is an artist who has enjoyed a long career and released so many great albums. Before I come to his essential work, I want to bring in some biography:
" New York City singer/songwriter and producer Moby was one of the most important electronic dance music figures of the '90s, whose crossover success helped bring the sound into the mainstream and established him as a progenitor to the crop of superstar DJs that would define the next wave of popular electronic music. At the peak of his breakthrough visibility, he courted controversy for putting a public face to the notoriously anonymous electronic genre and attracting scorn from techno purists. Early on, Moby fused rapid disco beats with heavy distorted guitars, punk rhythms, and detailed productions that drew equally from pop, dance, and movie soundtracks. Not only did his music differ from both the cool surface textures of ambient music and the hedonistic world of house music, but so did his lifestyle; Moby was famous for his devout Christian beliefs, as well as his environmental and vegan activism. First breaking into the British Top Ten with the 1991 single "Go," he soon established himself in the U.S. as one of the scene's premier producers with 1995's critically acclaimed Everything Is Wrong. After a brief foray into punk rock introduced fans to his other sonic inspirations, Moby transitioned into a new role as a crossover pop star with 1999's seminal blockbuster Play. While his chart success would not reach the same heights again, he maintained his fan base with steady, reliable output, swapping between traditional house tracks and expansive ambient collections into the 2020s. Occasionally, he even dipped back into guitar-based, politicized anthems with side band the Void Pacific Choir. In 2021, he issued his 19th full-length, the reimagined retrospective Reprise.
Born Richard Melville Hall, Moby received his nickname as a child, derived from the fact that Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick, is his great-great-granduncle. He was raised in Darien, Connecticut, where he played in a hardcore punk band called the Vatican Commandos as a teenager. Later, he briefly sang with Flipper while their singer was serving time in jail. He briefly attended college before he moved to New York City, where he began DJing in dance clubs. From the late '80s through 1990, he released a number of singles and EPs for the independent label Instinct. In 1991, he set the theme from David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks to an insistent house-derived rhythm while remixing his track "Go," the B-side to his debut single, "Mobility." The updated "Go" became a surprise British hit single, climbing into the Top Ten. Following its success, Moby was invited to remix a number of mainstream and underground acts, including Michael Jackson, Pet Shop Boys, Brian Eno, Depeche Mode, Erasure, the B-52s, and Orbital.
Moby continued performing at dances and raves throughout 1991 and 1992, culminating in a set at 1992's Mixmag awards, where he broke his keyboards at the end of his concert. Moby, his first full-length album, appeared in 1992, although it was released without Moby's involvement and contained tracks that were at least a year old at the time. In 1993, he released the double A-sided single "I Feel It"/"Thousand," which became a moderate U.K. hit. According to The Guinness Book of Records, "Thousand" is the fastest single ever, appropriately clocking in at 1,000 beats a minute. That same year, Moby signed a record contract with Mute in the U.K. and major-label Elektra in the U.S. His first release for both labels was the six-song EP Move. His previous American label, Instinct, continued releasing CD collections of his work against his wishes. These included Ambient, which compiled unissued material recorded between 1988 and 1991, and Early Underground, which collected tracks from several of his singles and EPs under different pseudonyms, including the original version of "Go." The Story So Far, a U.K. version of Moby with a different track listing, also appeared. In 1994, the single "Hymn" -- one of the first fusions of gospel, techno, and ambient music -- was released.
The song reappeared as the lead track to Everything Is Wrong, his first album released under his new record deals. The full-length appeared in the spring of 1995 to uniformly positive reviews, especially in the American press, which had previously ignored him. Despite the promotional push behind the album and his popular sets at the 1995 Lollapalooza festival, the album wasn't a commercial success. "Bring Back My Happiness," however, was a Top Ten hit on Billboard's club chart. The following year, Moby revisited his roots in heavy guitar-based music for 1996's Animal Rights, which featured a cover of Mission of Burma's "That's When I Reach for My Revolver" and received mixed reviews. He also released The End of Everything, an ambient techno album credited to his occasional pseudonym Voodoo Child, on Trophy Records, his own sublabel of Mute. One year later, Elektra collected his soundtrack highlights for I Like to Score, a compilation that included his remix of "The James Bond Theme" for Tomorrow Never Dies, as well as contributions to Cool World, Heat, and Scream.
Moby's fifth studio album, Play, appeared in 1999. Surpassing everyone's expectations, the record -- featuring numerous samples of Alan Lomax field recordings -- went double platinum in the U.S. and reached number one in the U.K. Aside from its hit singles, Play's success was assured when its tracks were licensed by dozens of advertisers and compilers. Always a restless producer, Moby followed Play with 18 (2002), a relatively reflective and restrained set dotted with an eclectic list of guest vocalists (including MC Lyte, Angie Stone, and Sinéad O'Connor). It debuted at number four on the U.S. Billboard 200 but didn't come close to catching Play in terms of sales.
The downward trend in mainstream appeal continued with Hotel (2005), a mixture of basic contemporary rock and downbeat electronica; early copies were bundled with an ambient disc worthy of separate release. On Last Night, seemingly unaware of contemporary trends in dance music, Moby made a return to club hedonism with some of his most creative -- if unapologetically nostalgic -- material. The austere and morose Wait for Me (2009), featuring a show-stealing appearance from soul singer Leela James, was just the opposite in tone. Destroyed (2011), recorded during late-night sessions in hotel rooms, offered a natural extension of Wait for Me's alienated feel. The companion piece Destroyed Remixed (2012) followed shortly thereafter; a limited double-disc compilation, it featured exclusive remixes by David Lynch, Holy Ghost!, and System Divine, as well as a previously unreleased 30-minute ambient piece by Moby himself.
After several appearances in early 2013, including DJ sets at the Coachella Festival, Moby released a single for Record Store Day entitled "The Lonely Night," which featured vocals from Mark Lanegan. The song was included on Innocents, a predominantly downcast album released that October. Other guest vocalists included Damien Jurado, the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne, and Skylar Grey. Three shows were performed in support of the album, all of which took place at Los Angeles' Fonda Theatre. A two-CD/two-DVD documentary, Almost Home, was released in March 2014. Late that year, Moby issued an expanded edition of Hotel Ambient, which was originally featured as a bonus disc on the limited-edition version of 2005's Hotel. An additional ambient collection, Long Ambients 1: Calm. Sleep., was later released as a free download.
During the latter half of 2015, Moby debuted Moby & the Void Pacific Choir. The first single, "The Light Is Clear in My Eyes," brought back some of the post-punk-inspired crunch from Animal Rights. The following May, he published Porcelain: A Memoir, which focused on his life in the '90s. The book was complemented by a two-disc collection that included Moby highlights from that decade and a selection of tracks by artists who influenced him, including the Jungle Brothers, 808 State, and A Tribe Called Quest. An album from Moby & the Void Pacific Choir, These Systems Are Failing, arrived later in the year. The second Void Pacific Choir effort, More Fast Songs About the Apocalypse, was issued in the summer of 2017. Moby returned the following year with Everything Was Beautiful, And Nothing Hurt. Taking its title from Kurt Vonnegut's book Slaughterhouse-Five, the album also saw him looking back to classic trip-hop for influence. In a charitable move, Moby announced that the proceeds from his 17th full-length, 2020's All Visible Objects, would be donated to a variety of charities with each track benefiting a different organization ranging from animal rights to environmental welfare. He capped the year with Live Ambients - Improvised Recordings Vol. 1.
For his 19th set, he recruited an impressive roster of guests for the career retrospective Reprise. Released in 2021 on Deutsche Grammophon, the album reimagined past tracks with orchestral and acoustic arrangements, pairing the likes of Gregory Porter and Amythyst Kiah for Play's "Natural Blues" and Kris Kristofferson and Mark Lanegan for "The Lonely Night." Moby also teamed with My Morning Jacket's Jim James for "Porcelain".
Below is my guide to the work of Moby that you need to own. He is a wonderfully inventive artist so, if you are not keen on one album, there are others that should be right for you. I am also ending up by recommending a Moby book that is worth seeking out. If you need a guide as to which Moby albums are best to get, then the recommendations below…
SHOULD be of assistance.
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The Four Essential Albums
Moby (U.S. Edition)
Release Date: 27th July, 1992
Label: Instinct
Producer: Moby
Standout Tracks: Drop a Beat/Next Is the E/Have You Seen My Baby?
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/667
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/0KfKzsskBe8a8Cf3JheeSm?si=MdvCwK5yRnGdWiWPHAJg0A&dl_branch=1
Review:
“After recording a string of dance classics culminating with the pop hit "Go," Moby released his full-length debut balancing those songs with a few decidedly inventive album tracks. Moby's melodic sense developed much quicker than other early techno producers; despite the criticisms leveled at his later direction (or lack thereof), his first album is a masterpiece of challenging, unrepetitive, beautifully programmed rave-techno. Though the familiar tracks "Drop a Beat," "Next Is the E," and "Go" are the highlights here, the final two tracks, "Slight Return" and "Stream," are fine examples of early chill-out techno” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: Go
Everything Is Wrong
Release Date: 14th March, 1995
Labels: Mute/Elektra
Producer: Moby
Standout Tracks: Hymn/Bring Back My Happiness/Into the Blue
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=2972&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/4JgnH6sdkW0fv3jU4ZgcT0?si=W-oyE_qzQRWgAj6RCPM8Gg&dl_branch=1
Review:
“Señor Moby’s albums have always been a bit schizophrenic and his 1995 masterpiece, Everything Is Wrong, is no exception. Once again, Electronica’s pop ambassador calls on a multitude of sounds and a bevy of guest vocalists but this time it’s strung cohesively with techno-operatic ambition. From the quiet urgency of the album’s opening track, “Hymn,” to the aggressive tech-rock of “All That I Need Is to Be Loved” and “What Love” (it’s no coincidence that many ‘80s metalheads turned to techno in the ‘90s), it’s clear nothing was right in Moby’s world. It’s not until rave anthems like “Feeling So Real” and the piano-driven “Everytime You Touch Me” that he pumps up the celebratory BPMs. The album’s various textures are impeccably pieced together—elemental chord progressions are offset by Moby’s pristine production and flawless pacing. While ambient pieces like “God Moving Over the Face of the Waters” have become Moby’s trademark, “First Cool Hive” is the only track on Everything Is Wrong that directly hints at the cool, collected soul of his 1999 breakthrough, Play” – SLANT
Choice Cut: All That I Need Is to Be Loved
Play
Release Date: 17th May, 1999
Labels: Mute/V2
Producer: Moby
Standout Tracks: Porcelain/Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?/Natural Blues
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=82202&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7yqSkf4TGPOHUtDKMVjhbD?si=QBY2uF1lQX-Or6Ebc-EVyQ&dl_branch=1
Review:
“After his less than convincing foray into industrial techno metal on 'Animal Rights', as white, inhuman and sexless a record as he could manage, and 1997's more accessible 'I Like To Score' soundtracks album, now he's delving into the roots of black music for inspiration. Crazy name, crazy guy. 'Play' encompasses hip-hop beats, funky grooves, samples of old blues hollering, big house emotionalism, and slow, smouldering soul. And for a man who always decried the navel-gazing, anti-dancing snobbery of 'intelligent' techno, it seems a much more natural habitat.
Witness natural born dancefloor grooves like 'Honey' and 'Find My Baby' and the old-skool hip-hop of 'Bodyrock'. Meanwhile, on 'Natural Blues' the old-school blues crooner sounds like he always had a live rave PA element to his music. This is when Moby's much-vaunted eclecticism works brilliantly, sounding more godlike than Jesus Jones-like.
None of which is likely to top the charts or endear him any further to the dance cognoscenti. But in ploughing a unique furrow in pop music, he demands your enjoyment as much as your respect” – NME
Choice Cut: Honey
Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt
Release Date: 2nd March, 2018
Labels: Little Idiot/Mute
Producer: Moby
Standout Tracks: Mere Anarchy/Welcome to Hard Times/This Wild Darkness
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=1321725&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3oS8G5MUbVJ2gKZwce5xpx?si=Oj_0UqL9SrK8OlHSn8WMlA&dl_branch=1
Review:
“Following a pair of angsty punk blasts with the Void Pacific Choir, Moby dipped back into what he does best: soulful electronic soundscapes. If the VPC albums were Moby's outward displays of anger and frustration surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Everything Was Beautiful, And Nothing Hurt was his depressed and introverted response to the subsequent societal fallout. Despite the overwhelming melancholy that drenches the album, it remains a gorgeous collection that is mostly indebted to trip-hop and his pre-millennial output, with a few nods to the quieter moments on 2013's Innocents. The closest he comes to Play's most propulsive and upbeat moments is on "Like a Motherless Child," which features vocals by Raquel Rodriguez delivered as a rendition of the Southern black spiritual "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child." Otherwise, EWBANH leans in the direction of Play highlights like "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?" ("The Last of Goodbyes"), "My Weakness" ("The Ceremony of Innocence," "Falling Rain and Light"), and "Porcelain" ("The Tired and the Hurt," "Waste of Suns"). Such somber atmospherics reflect a mood and general air of uncertainty, casting a dour shadow over the majority of the album. "Welcome to Hard Times" rides a hypnotic groove, best experienced while enjoying a final drink before the world ends, while "The Sorrow Tree" pulses away, ramping up tension and anxiety. "The Middle Is Gone" -- a forlorn reflection on life and past mistakes -- is utterly hopeless, as Moby laments "I'll never be free/Always plagued by what I'll never be." Yet, beneath it all, there's a sense of warmth that offers a sliver of hope. The sweeping "This Wild Darkness" finds Moby searching for a reason to continue, following "The Middle Is Gone." As he intones over a lush backdrop, supporting vocalists sing "In this darkness/Please light my way." It's a beautiful way to usher out Everything Was Beautiful, And Nothing Hurt, as if Moby is offering a comforting sonic hug. After an album of such confessional, bittersweet sadness, he needs one too” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: Like a Motherless Child
The Underrated Gem
18
Release Date: 13th May, 2002
Labels: Mute/V2
Producer: Moby
Standout Tracks: We Are All Made of Stars/In This World/In My Heart
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=39061&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/4nNRmcno83xJnzFWl8uYyJ?si=o2TIehIaTAuz9KKw1WVl-Q&dl_branch=1
Review:
“It’s difficult to recall, now that Moby’s bald head is as familiar a logo as the Nike swoosh, but his career was once nearly a joke. For a decade, he tried every style of music: rave, ambient, shouty punk, James Bond themes. The overall impression was not of joyous eclecticism, but of someone who had a recording contract and lots of talent, but didn’t quite know what to do with either. He found the deceptively simple answer on 1999’s Play: old blues and gospel vocals tacked onto modern beats. Play sold 10 million copies, aided by canny viral marketing: Every track on the album was licensed to a TV ad campaign. You could wave your copy of No Logo in dismay, but it was hard not to admire the strategy’s ruthless efficiency. Three years on, 18’s opening “We Are All Made of Stars,” the first single, suggests another of Moby’s deranged stylistic leaps is upon us. Tinnily charming new-wave pop, the song comes complete with a guitar riff eerily reminiscent of Bryan Adams’s “Run to You.” But Moby’s new Flock of Seagulls direction fails to last longer than this track. The rest sticks to Play’s blueprint of vocal samples, sighing synthesized strings, portentous piano tinkling and trundling breakbeats. For the most part, the formula still works fine. “One of These Mornings” and Sinéad O’Connor’s lip- quivering vocal on “Great Escape” tug at the heartstrings. 18 wafts along, a sample-driven equivalent of English post-Radiohead bands Coldplay and Starsailor: delicately inoffensive and suffused with a vague sense of melancholy. Listen carefully and you can hear scores of advertising executives pressing redial” – Blender
Choice Cut: Extreme Ways
The Latest Album
Reprise
Release Date: 28th May, 2021
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Producer: Moby
Standout Tracks: Heroes (with Mindy Jones)/Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? (with Apollo Jane and Deitrick Haddon)/The Great Escape (with Nataly Dawn, Alice Skye, and Luna Li)
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1bqeVjo54gj4BjjOH8dC97?si=l69KNDjkT5uU1nDOdoOZsg&dl_branch=1
Review:
“A reimagining of his 1991 rave calling-card ‘Go’ is perhaps the most radical symphonic makeover, transforming its club anthemics with dynamic tribal drumming which comes on like a fight between The Lion King and James Bond soundtracks. Best of all is ‘The Lonely Night’, which sees an overlooked folktronica track from his 2013 album ‘Innocents’ emerge as the record’s highlight, Kris Kristofferson joining original vocalist Mark Langdon for wizened vocal duties. On the flipside, there’s a ghastly slowed-down take on his late friend David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ featuring the Luna Li, awash with breathiness and vocal fry, which sounds like it should be soundtracking a John Lewis Christmas advert – and serves to remind you that Moby was once known as ‘Mr. Advertising’ due to the marketing decision to licence every one of ‘Play’’s tracks for use on commercials.
One of the problems of ‘Reprise’ is it does have the chin-stroking feel of a BBC Last Night at the Proms/Manchester International Festival curio arts commission. There was a time when Moby couldn’t be more associated with middle-aged dinner party music without the track names being called ‘Their Dad Has The Kids This Weekend, Do You Have The Number For a Dealer?’ and ‘How DO You Get Your Lamb So Moist? Mine Usually Ends Up Claggy’, which led to the anodyne tag that dogged him for decades. By drilling down to the compositional basics of his songs and then divesting them of their interesting production flourishes, he perversely makes them feel more like aural wallpaper.
Overall, ‘Reprise’ is full of dignified reworkings that don’t offer too many surprises, which – given he’s still weathering the backlash that greeted his 2019 memoir Then It Fell Apart – is perhaps the point” – NME
Choice Cut: Natural Blues (with Gregory Porter and Amythyst Kiah)
The Moby Book
Then It Fell Apart
Author: Moby
Publication Date: 3rd December, 2020
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Synopsis:
“*Featured in The Times' 'Best Books of the Year So Far'* What do you do when you realise you have everything you think you've ever wanted but still feel completely empty? What do you do when it all starts to fall apart? The second volume of Moby's extraordinary life story is a journey into the dark heart of fame and the demons that lurk just beneath the bling and bluster of the celebrity lifestyle. In summer 1999, Moby released the album that defined the millennium, PLAY. Like generation-defining albums before it, PLAY was ubiquitous, and catapulted Moby to superstardom. Suddenly he was hanging out with David Bowie and Lou Reed, Christina Ricci and Madonna, taking esctasy for breakfast (most days), drinking litres of vodka (every day), and sleeping with super models (infrequently). It was a diet that couldn't last. And then it fell apart. The second volume of Moby's memoir is a classic about the banality of fame. It is shocking, riotously entertaining, extreme, and unforgiving. It is unedifying, but you can never tear your eyes away from the page” – Waterstones
Order: https://www.waterstones.com/book/then-it-fell-apart/moby/9780571339419