He Put The Spirit Into Dance Music, or Can My Honey Come Back Sometime?
Written: Jan 16 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: A wonderfully varied and spiritual album which combines contemporary dance with soul and gospel producing something quite moving and unique.
Cons: There are few drawbacks to this album - a few too many peaceful tracks, and too many tiny bridge songs between the albums meat can't detract from its obvious and potent charms.
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| Barbelith's Full Review: Play by Moby |
In the middle of 1999, all over the semi alternative radio stations in the UK was this song called "Honey" - it was irresistably catchy - a wonderful loop of a lyric, with an energy building behind it each time. I heard it over and over again, and every time it came on I felt bouncy and happy and eager to party. I made a mental note to myself - find out about this Moby character, and explore the possibility of buying his album.
The reviews for the album in the UK were wonderful as well - Music Week said "Quite simply one of the best albums of the year so far", NME said "Play is beautifully focused ... his finest album yet." I read them and I thought - I really must look into buying that album at some point.
After a few weeks had passed I found myself in a record shop - and saw the cover - it wasn't the most alluring thing I had ever seen. And by now the doubts had started to surface in my mind. "Honey" was such a SIMPLE song - it could have been one of those one off pop acts that produce albums that basically stink. Or worse (from an initial listen to a few seconds in a record shop) it sounded like one of those albums that was "cool" at the moment, and that I just wouldn't GET (like Massive Attack's Blue Lines or Beck's Odelay [give me Mutations or Midnight Vultures any day]). I decided to pass on it for the moment (this was before my conversion to the very concept of Dance Music - see my review of Fat Boy Slim for details!)
Three months later and I saw it in a Virgin Megastore and listened to Honey again. It was perfect, gripping wonderful, invigorating. Did I buy it? NO! I thought about it a bit more, got the Macy Gray album instead and asked for Moby for Christmas from my parents.
Christmas came, and with it came three albums from my mother. I listened to Honey about a thousand times in the first three days. But then gradually the rest of the album started to encroach on me. This was no idle pop-sensation, nor was it arch-cool, or the result of misplaced hysterical reviewing. This was a album that balanced soul and spiritual music with electonica and dance and produced something uplifting, thrilling and varied. The first half is more energetic than the last, but the last confirms PLAY as an album for life - not just for dancing too.
God, I felt like a prat for not buying it sooner.
So take my advice - go into your local record shop immediately and listen to HONEY, RUN ON and NATURAL BLUES. And then buy the album on the spot and inject some spiritual hedonism into your hum-drum drab life. You won't regret it!
[Apologies before I begin for the florid language I may use. Describing the effects of music is not the easiest thing to do]
HONEY - *****
The album's first bona fide classic and the most unequivocally bloody wonderful song on it. A sassy vocal repeats as bass piano and synth bounce around - much as you will be by about a third of the way through the song. Only qualm - It can be a shock moving from this elegantly crafted song (built around a brief and incredibly lyrical sample) to some of the simplicity on the rest of the album...
FIND MY BABY - ****
The initial sampling might discourage you from exploring the rest of the song, let alone the rest of the album - but once you are half way through it, everything begins to click, and from that point on, the album makes perfect sense. Struggle past the initial jolt and you'll be fine.
PORCELAIN - ***
A delicate song based around smooth chords, a relaxed (almost spaced out) lyric and twinklings of piano. It's pleasant, but It's one of the slightest offerings on the album, and one of the few places that the simplicity of much of Moby's music seems to be a drawback, rather than a mark of elegance.
WHY DOES MY HEART FEEL SO BAD? - ****
The only piece of music that I have ever heard that I think you could dance to in a club while your heart was breaking. It stays true to Moby's looped lyric (here a desperately soulful rendition of the title of the song, with a supportive near gospel chorus) with uplifting chords and piano - but the result is so gutting that it is as moving while dancing as it would be curled up on your bed pining after love's lost.
SOUTH SIDE - ****
One of the strangest and most poppy offerings on the album combines a haunting verse with a vigourous and bouncy chorus celebrating the delights of going out!
RUSHING - ***
An elegant and peaceful instrumental that would be as comfortable on a New Age relaxation album as it is on PLAY. It's short and graceful, but not of particular significance.
BODYROCK - ****
I was shocked to turn on the TV the other day to watch Veronica's Closet to find that this had been co-opted as their credit music! It really is better in and of itself, separated from the Beached Whale of comedy past-it Kirsty Alley. Listen to it loud and you won't be disappointed. It's the most conventional pop-song on the album, reminiscent of Fat Boy Slim's Rockefeller Skank.
NATURAL BLUES - *****
One of the album's absolute classics. The sampled spiritual lyric is as simple as anything Moby has ever used before, but the result is sublime. A light rhythm builds behind the loop and slowly builds towards perfection.
MACHETE - **
One of the more esoteric offerings, combining 80s electronic dance, with drum and bass and the agression of a thrash metal group. Certainly worth a listen, but the only track on the album that I would consider skipping over.
7 - ***
A tiny bridge of music linking the aggression of Machete to the perfection of Run On.
RUN ON - *****
One of the other absolute classics on the album, and the closest thing to a song in the traditional sense of the word. Taking much of its substance from a song by Bill Langford and the Langfordaires (which makes up a great proportion of the tune and lyrics), Moby plays musical cut and paste creating a slightly unnerving but generally celebratory and dancable song to the power of God's retribution. It might make you think about the nature of this kind of song-making - so much of this song is driven by the samples - but such qualms won't undermine your immediate love for it.
DOWN SLOW - ***
It's not really fair to evaluate these little intermediate passages as true songs. But while they may not be particularly thrilling in and of themselves, they really help bridge the variety of Moby's productions.
IF THINGS WERE PERFECT - ****
A hypnotically downbeat voice describes sensations of winter - feelings of isolation, darkness and cold - while a looped sample haunts out "give me summer". Elegant and chilling.
EVERLOVING - *****
Perfect (if too brief). A light heart-breaking guitar strumming is broken with a surprisingly moving twinkle of piano keys, opening up a piece of music that is the closest thing to a spiritual glass of water on a hot day that you are likely to find. The only human noises within it is the low humming of the guitar player. As the title suggests - it is an attempt to get the feeling of being completely intoxicated by love for someone - both uplifting and crushing simulataneously.
INSIDE - **1/2
A rhythmic heartbeat and floating distant echoes suggest that this was a song designed to reflect the feeling of being underwater or in the womb. It is an oddly reassuring song - but strays a little too far towards self-help tapes for my liking.
GUITAR FLUTE AND STRING - **1/2
The third instrumental in a row is pleasant and brief, but unnecessary.
THE SKY IS BROKEN - ***1/2
Another song in the vein of IF THINGS WERE PERFECT allows the hypnotic voice to breathe over slow movements of sound picked out by piano. Possibly we are to view the songs from ITWP to now as one piece of peaceful and moving music - if so, it doesn't quite work, but it makes a bloody good effort towards it.
MY WEAKNESS - *****
The last breathy looping of gospel-like voices brings the album to a close. There's something almost Ladysmith Black Mambazo about it for a while, which gradually combines with powerful chords in one of Moby's standard (but effective) methods. Only in this song, the organ chords build and flow until they have blotted out the voices, which become the rhythm, the bass, behind the almighty. Moby is a Christian - and if this were his vision of god, it would be one that even I (as an atheist) could understand the attraction of. A perfect ending.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Barbelith
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Member: Tom Coates
Location: London
Reviews written: 38
Trusted by: 128 members
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