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- Date Released: June 1, 1999
- Genre: Electronic
- Style: Electronic Ambient, Techno
- Label: Little Idiot / Richard Hall Music
Folk + blues + beats = bliss.
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We Say...
Although some techno futurists still disparage the gorgeous Play, it qualified as a futurist work simply by redefining the concept of "commercial." Clubs would never take a CD mega, and no way could these anonymously sung tracks crack any hit-based radio format. So Moby's handlers swamped the mass market through the side door, placing swatches of all 18 songs (most many times) on movie and TV soundtracks and in ads for the likes of Volkswagen, Bailey's Irish Cream and American Express. FM exposure followed. But the main reason this album will sound familiar the way Beethoven's Ninth does to a classical ignoramus is that little bits of it have seeped into most Americans' brains. For this be grateful, because those bits are intensely pleasurable as melody or texture or sometimes beat, and because Moby has ordered, paced, and segued them and their intimate surroundings into something that suggests a surging and receding whole. A Treacherous Three rap powers "Bodyrock," but most of the identifiable sources are little-known blues and gospel singers first archived by folklorist Alan Lomax. Folk purists might well claim this re-use cheapens them. But here's betting musical folk like the singers themselves are plenty proud somewhere.
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They Say...
Following a notorious flirtation with alternative rock, Moby returned to the electronic dance mainstream on the 1997 album I Like to Score. With 1999's Play, he made yet another leap back toward the electronica base that had passed him by during the mid-'90s. The first two tracks, "Honey" and "Find My Baby," weave short blues or gospel vocal samples around rather disinterested breakbeat techno. This version of blues-meets-electronica is undoubtedly intriguing to the all-important NPR crowd, but it is more than just a bit gimmicky to any techno fans who know their Carl Craig from Carl Cox. Fortunately, Moby redeems himself in a big way over the rest of the album with a spate of tracks that return him to the evocative, melancholy techno that's been a specialty since his early days. The tinkly piano line and warped string samples on "Porcelain" frame a meaningful, devastatingly understated vocal from the man himself, while "South Side" is just another pop song by someone who shouldn't be singing -- that is, until the transcendent chorus redeems everything. Surprisingly, many of Moby's vocal tracks are highlights; he has an unerring sense of how to frame his fragile vocals with sympathetic productions. Occasionally, the similarities to contemporary dance superstars like Fatboy Slim and Chemical Brothers are just a bit too close for comfort, as on the stale big-beat anthem "Bodyrock." Still, Moby shows himself back in the groove after a long hiatus, balancing his sublime early sound with the breakbeat techno evolution of the '90s.
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| 01. |  |
Honey |
3:28 |
|
| 02. | |
Find My Baby |
3:59 |
|
| 03. | |
Porcelain |
4:01 |
|
| 04. | |
Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? |
4:23 |
|
| 05. | |
South Side |
3:50 |
|
| 06. | |
Rushing |
3:00 |
|
| 07. | |
Bodyrock |
3:36 |
|
| 08. | |
Natural Blues |
4:13 |
|
| 09. | |
Machete |
3:37 |
|
| 10. | |
7 |
1:02 |
|
| 11. | |
Run On |
3:45 |
|
| 12. | |
Down Slow |
1:34 |
|
| 13. | |
If Things Were Perfect |
4:18 |
|
| 14. | |
Everloving |
3:25 |
|
| 15. | |
Inside |
4:48 |
|
| 16. | |
Guitar Flute & String |
2:09 |
|
| 17. | |
The Sky Is Broken |
4:18 |
|
| 18. | |
My Weakness |
3:37 |
|
18 Total Tracks, 63:03 Total Length
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