Moby – Play

Moby - Play : The Complete Recordings" is now available in the iTunes Store

1999's "Play" heralded a return to form for Moby, who was inspired to start the project after forming samples from a compilation of field recordings. Largely ignored by radio and television, the album was licensed for use in advertising and media outlets in an attempt to gain prominence. Moby's mass marketing of memorable excerpts from the album inevitably led to significant airplay, thus earning him a global audience and chart success. To that end, expanding the emotional palette of his electronica style and inserting it into the public domain effectively created a lucrative monster that not even he could compete with. Such novel promotional methods resulted in the album perhaps becoming too popular, selling 12 million copies and defining the divisive figure's already infrequent output to the extent that he would struggle to rise above it.

Moby's cerebral take on the amalgamation of gospel vocal sampling and detached big beat production is wholly unremarkable, having been utilized by his contemporaries throughout the 1990s, but by virtue of public exposure, the album brought the sample-heavy form of techno to a mainstream audience. Having said that, the incorporation of melancholic instrumental flourishes and crackly soundbeds generating warmth and delicacy was hitherto unprecedented. Even when listening to the album for the first time, our sensitization to swatches of previously unknown voices and the unobtrusive, slightly volatile and repetitive sounds bolstering them renders the tracks incredibly accessible and immediately pleasing to the ear. Incrementally seeped into the brains of millions over the course of a three-year period, the songs emerge as mystifying and magnetic, but subliminal snippets of tinkly piano lines should not be the way you consume this album. It demands to be heard in its glorious entirety.

Moby's cinematic brand of downtempo techno achieved ubiquity, but aside from its prevalence, the sheer sophistication and sombre, plaintive quality recalling not only hymns, but also futuristic soundtracks, should be the real reason it is celebrated by the consensus. "Play" is a rich, hauntingly poignant and oddly sensual concentration of styles, from blues, ambient and even alternative rock, which Moby had only recently explored. From the intoxicating classical note values, understated beat patterns to textural shifts that give the impression of being too incoherent and fragile to align stylistically, nothing ever feels straightforward or stale. Off-key vocal samples atypical of EDM are rendered deeply satisfying and electrifying by way of being structured into operating as an utterly awe-inspiring chorus. "Honey," "South Side," "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?" "Porcelain," and "Natural Blues" are dance classics of the highest order, somehow consolidating anachronistic elements, powerful melodies and spiritual soulfulness with a modern groove and presentation. Moby's distinctive arrangement of anomalous acoustic and classical instruments and interlaced lo-fi noise effects within the sphere of a contemporary composition, whereby prolonged ambience and dramatic swells are as crucial to the substance of the overall material as the vivid phrasing and peaceful potence of the samples, inversely harmonise mysticism, new age, folk and soul components, produces a restrained impetus that sounds as organic as it does processed.

"Play", in of construction, sequencing and organization, is comprised of two recognizably divergent parts of the same fulfilling whole. As disunited as it is, the result is markedly offbeat yet dynamic and seamless. Side one flows incredibly well and is patently a series of potential irresistible hit singles designed to be danced to or marvelled at, whereas side two is a decidedly more tranquil affair, the comedown if you like. It serves to soothe as much as stimulate, and the approach is a winning one, offering revelatory and thought-provoking listening that remains unparalleled in the field of electronica.

Rating: 4/5

2 tracks of this album were used for Season 7-episodes of the X-Files series. "The Sky Is Broken" appeared on 7x17 "All Things" and "My Weakness" appeared as a kind of main soundtrack on 7x11 "Closure", when agent Mulder finds the soul of his dead sister.

The versions of "My Weakness" that are used for "Closure" as intro and end soundtrack are slightly different re-edits by Mark Snow.

"Porcelain" is by far my favorite track on this album. Although the lyrics are somewhat sad, it's a very sexy make-out song. Next in line would be "Run On," an old-timey harmonized gospel track with a bouncy beat. Very fun! Although I agree with others that his older stuff is different, I wouldn't go so far as to call it "better"...Just different, and all quite excellent to listen to. It's no wonder this CD put Moby on the mainstream map.

This album is a departure from Moby's earlier work, very slow and thoughtful. Most of the tracks feature samples of a gospel choir from a bunch of cassettes Moby bought when he visited the south. I think its okay for a listen now and then, but its not my favorite stuff. Despite the rap it might have gotten for being a little cheesey, I think Bodyrock is a pretty decent track.