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Steve Winwood
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Toby Keith
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The Lemonheads
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Moby
You didn’t need to be a music fan to hear Moby’s Play album in 1999. Fewer albums have been more ubiquitous than this, perpetrating television ads and audio spots virtually every which way you turned. Although Moby’s ploy of licensing this album to death might have played a significant role in aiding its exposure, and hence its sales, but it did little to diminish its appeal. Indeed, familiarity bred anything but contempt, and entire ‘un-hip’ generations of baby-boomers discovered that electronic rhythm tracks and sampling weren’t quite the dearth of ideas they imagined. For his part, Moby wasn’t doing anything incredibly fancy or different than the hundreds of other sample-crazy music-makers out there; he lifted vocal tracks and rhythms from pre-existing recordings, and tweaked them to his own purpose. The main difference, though, is that Moby was not at all interested in making bombastic dance tracks, full of here-today-gone-tomorrow synthesized sounds. Instead, he made something much earthier and fundamentally sound. When not using his own soft-spoken voice, he relied on gospel and blues singers, most of whom were (and remain) unknown to the general public. Many of these voices were taken from obscure, a cappella ‘field recordings’ (Field recordings were usually live, spontaneous recordings made by music historians, or A&R men in search of something new for their label to exploit), meant to capture an element of indigenous American music that was not being acknowledged by the music industry. By utilizing these recordings, Moby added a warmth and familiarity to his song constructions that had heretofore gone overlooked.
Moby’s methods of construction are remarkably simple, and he utilizes similar chord patterns over and over and over, yet this collection of tunes remains charming, and magically avoids redundancy. For example, the large majority of the songs featured on Play feature a continuous four-chord loop, which repeats endlessly. On this base, he adds parts bit by bit, giving the songs a sense of climax and relieving the inherent boredom that otherwise would set in like rigor mortis in roadkill. Most songs don’t even have choruses. What provides the highlights here are those magnificent voices. With this otherworldly soundtrack soaring above them, the singers ground the proceedings, making Play the most earthy and human example of this genre.
With their hypnotic appeal, these tracks can be quite effective and moving if heard under the right circumstances. If you’re lonely, melancholy or full of existential angst, Play could provide the perfect soundtrack to your brooding thoughts. Instead of growing boring, the repetition provides resonance and implies an emotional depth that could cause your very soul to vibrate with longing.
On a final note, you should be aware that this album exists in (at least) three different versions; 1) the original, 2) a re-release which replaces the original “Southside” with the version that features Gwen Stefani on backing vocals (an indiscernible difference, to be honest), and 3) a two-CD version that compiles “b”-sides from the same time period. Without a doubt, I recommend the 2 CD version, since most of the B-sides are every bit as good as the stuff on the main disk.
Grade: 
 
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