Bodyrock (Moby) (LP 3239 - 3245)

Moby  Play (CD, Mute Records, 1999) ****  

Moby  Play: The B Sides (CD, Mute Records, 2000) ****  

Moby  18 (CD, Mute Records, 2002) **** 

Moby  Hotel (CD, Mute Records, 2005) **** 

Moby  Last Night (CD, Mute Records, 2008) ***    

Moby  Destroyed (CD, Mute Records, 2011) *****  

Moby  Innocents (CD, Mute Records, 2013) ****  

Genre: Electro-pop 

Places I remember: Real Groovy Records, Second hand shops, Virgin Megastore (Dubai), JB Hi Fi, Fives

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Natural Blues (Play); Extreme Ways (18); Almost Home (Innocents)

Gear costume: Flying Foxes (Play: The B Sides)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: Moby is an American electronica musician/ producer/ DJ/ songwriter who hit it big back at the turn of the millennium.

It was Keegan who got me into Moby initially. He'd play Play a lot and it was noticeably different to the stuff that normally came out of his bedroom (Death Metal). I absorbed Play enough to want my own copy. And then I enjoyed it enough to keep buying his albums for a while.

Play: The B Sides is a compilation of the B sides to the myriad of singles that came about because of the huge success of Play. Overall it's a good companion album of things that otherwise he wouldn't have released. 

To my ears, it's as good as Play. It has the same mixture of sub genres/ crate digging strengths as the A sides, I think. In some ways I like its ambient toons more than the familiar hits of Play. The two albums are a great package.

18 had 18 songs on it. Cool. One of them is the song that ends each of the Bourne trilogy of films - Extreme Ways. Which is guaranteed to raise your blood pressure. The rest of the album shows off Moby's extreme talent. It's an eclectic mix that holds my attention every time.

Hotel has Slipping Away on it. The rest is like the previous few Moby albums and I have zero problem with that. I like his observations about life on Hotel.

Last Night is more of a dance oriented album as befitting the title. As he says it's about condensing the experience of 25 years of going out in NYC. Which I've never done! So, this album is not really for me, but I still enjoy it, as I do Madonna's dance albums.

Moby relies on a number of singers on Last Night, rather than his own voice - which is appropriate given his aim. Still, I kind of miss his vocals. I missed buying his next album (those previous ones are all in sequence), so next up is Destroyed.

From the cover (a photo taken by Moby) to the music, I love everything about Destroyed. It perfectly soundtracks the late-night ambience Moby was going for, having worked on the album's music late at night and very early in the morning.

Apparently, while on tour he would stay up in his hotel room because of insomnia and work on music during the late night. Moby - 'it seemed as if everyone else in the world is sleeping.' And that comes through clearly in the music.

The last Moby album on my list is Innocents from 2013 (I lost track of him after that). It's pretty amazing as well. Not quite Destroyed, but it does contain the sublime Almost Home. which features guitarist Damien Jurado.  

I do find myself enjoying the less dance oriented albums a lot more, and I can listen to Destroyed and Innocents on repeat without any problem.

Where do they all belong? In one sense I probably have enough Moby music, but in another sense, I don't. I didn't realise there was a sequel album to 18 (18: The B Sides and DVD). Must look out for that. I'm also keen to get the album before Destroyed - Wait For Me.