Defend the indefensible/POO: Moby - Play

He did oversaturate Play with too many songs and it’s too front loaded, the 2nd half gets boring.

If he had released it as a 12 track album and save another 12 for a Pt. 2 released 10 months later he could’ve had two hit albums in less than a year.

More a fan of Play: The B-Sides bonus CD

1. Flower
2. Sunday
3. Memory Gospel
4. Whispering Wind
5. Summer
6. Spirit
7. Flying Foxes
8. Sunspot
9. Flying Over the Dateline
10. Running
11. The Sun Never Stops Setting

is Gwen Stefani on the album version of "South Side"?

― flappy bird, Wednesday, December 13, 2017 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I know mh already answered this, but nope. I made the mistake of buying the album for my then-gf, who liked the Gwen version. I was back at the record shop the next day to buy the CD5, which cost nearly as much as the album!

I believe it's called overselling:

Play is easily the most influential album in the history of electronic music, because it made an entire audience for the music out of nothing.

Might have posted this upthread but it seems to me that this record’s biggest legacy (and perhaps Moby’s) is that it effectively killed the idea that a musician could “sell out” in licensing of all his or her songs.

It’s almost hard to remember now but before this record, there was an almost puritanical view of licensing music within alternative/independent musician circles (of which Moby was still then a member). It mostly came up in the wake of grunge and alternative, which found a bunch of heretofore small independent acts used to playing clubs and selling a few thousand records at best suddenly signed to major labels, selling tons of records and playing in stadiums. Notwithstanding their sudden increase in popularity, using your music to expressly sell products remained largely verboten — and to the extent it was done at all, it was largely seen as an embarrassment.

By 1999, however, grunge and alternative were largely dead. A number of these acts had been dropped by the majors. Some completely flopped — others had successfully (and shamelessly) commercialized themselves to broaden their audience (I’m still blown away at how generic the Butthole Surfers became). But however you felt about it, a whole lot of heroes were dead by the end of the decade, either literally or figuratively — as was any notion of “integrity” in pop music (which was always a terrible idea anyway).

Enter Play. By not simply licensing the music but by making a self-conscious statement that he intended to license every song on the record, Moby effectively gave a host of musicians license to do the same. Almost immediately, and accelerated by the internet and the advent of mp3s, the floodgates opened and countless indie acts were getting their music on TV shows, commercials and the like. Music was everywhere And artists making money off of it (instead of just the labels) was “OK."

Whatever else you think of the music itself (I enjoy it), that to me is the record’s biggest legacy. There really is no such thing as "selling out" anymore. Musicians are free to make money off their “art” in pretty much any way possible. Thanks, Moby.

can we talk about how bad Moby's live setup is

this is pretty great though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsjr49AdrUA

Is he actually hitting a note or percussion with the drumsticks? You can hear them hitting pads in the video but I don’t hear what they’re doing in the music.

It seems like the beat is already there and he’s just playbacking it which looks totally stupid if that’s it.

that's exactly what he's doing

he still does it except he has his band play on top of the full album track which is terrible and stupid

did he explicitly state that he planned to license every song on Play? how did other artists react?

they took drugs

Always a good time to post this account of being in Moby's band and pretending to play keyboards:
http://inthemix.junkee.com/my-1993-rave-adventure-with-moby/19934
http://inthemix.junkee.com/how-i-survived-americas-first-ever-rave-tour/20112

i think tbh that the selling out for Moby wasn't much of an issue bc the usual folks who'd cry "sellout!" at a musician licensing their songs only moan if it's rock music, i don't think blues-sampling electronic tunes are gonna register for them.

Always a good time to post this account of being in Moby's band and pretending to play keyboards:
http://inthemix.junkee.com/my-1993-rave-adventure-with-moby/19934
http://inthemix.junkee.com/how-i-survived-americas-first-ever-rave-tour/20112

― change display name (Jordan)

Great read! Makes me both respect and disrespect Moby.

Also there's a podcast interview where Moby addresses Richard D James calling him a buffoon and an elitist. Moby thinks (or at least lies about it) that he called him a buffoon because he played guitar on stage and that he was being called an elitist for having insomnia and not being talkative. These Jim Poe anecdotes actually reveal the reason... he was just dancing on stage like a buffoon with unplugged instruments and he travelled on airplane while everyone else (including Aphex Twin and Orbital) travelled by bus with the rest of the roadies and staff.

Points to RDJ and fuck you Moby.

It also shows how Moby was a businessman first and a musician second so the shameless selling out of Play shouldn't be surprising to any of his fans.

dude aint got no soul

good read that Jim Poe article

It seems that Jim Poe article has vanished from the intertubes.