Moby – Play – Review

Moby

Play (V2)
by Lex Marburger

Some DJs go back to James Brown. Some go to Parliament. Some wallow in disco. Hard to stand out when y’all are mucking about with the same ten samples, hmm? “Screw that,” sez Moby, “I’ll go way back.” So he makes a short stop-over in old school, then takes a time-concord to the Delta, plops down his DAT recorder, and samples some old blues/folk tunes. Though the sound is new, it’s still just some rich white guy stealing Black music. But hey, if Elvis could do it, why not Moby? Play isn’t a bad album, not by a long shot. He does a good job with the subtleties (read: imperfections) of field recordings, smoothes them out and presents clever juxtapositions of eras – techno beats with samples from guys who were born before TV. He throws on some of his own vocals, too, eerily sounding like MC 900 ft. Jesus at times. But hey, it sounds fresh, and he didn’t do anything like “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver.”
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