ANYONE ELSE FEEL THE SAME WAY ABOUT THIS RECORD?

I bought this album in the summer of 1999 not long after it was released, on the back of hearing most of it played in Fopp Records during an afternoon's browsing. Over the years, I've probably done such a thing maybe four or five times, and more often than not, when I took it home and shoved it onto my own system, the songs didn't sound anything like half as good.

But that didn't happen with Play which became a firm favourite on heavy rotation in Villain Towers. The mix of electronic dance, rock, pop, ambiance, folk and gospel just struck the right note with me at that particular point in time - it was the sort of record that could play away in the background and on every listen, my ears would pick up something that was fresh.

Within a few months, I began to notice snippets of the album getting used in a lot of TV adverts and then I started reading that many journalists were placing it high in the best of 1999 charts and predicting that the 21st Century - (which was then very nigh assuming you take 1st January 2000 as the first day of that era) - would see loads of artists try to blend the modern with the traditional.

Then Moby started getting very heavy rotation on MTV/MTV2 thanks to a hauntingly memorable video featuring Christina Ricci.

And then......Moby and his bloody record were everywhere you turned. Before too long, it wasn't difficult to feel bored about it all.

About four weeks ago, I picked up the CD again for the first time in probably eight or so years and, if you'll pardon the pun, pressed Play on the machine and let it go all the way through in just over an hour. And I re-discovered that it is a genuine classic deserving all the plaudits initailly thrown at it, and I accepted that time will fully bring back to life something that had once seemed so to be stale.

Put aside any prejudices you might have.....

mp3 : Moby - Bodyrock
mp3 : Moby - Find My Baby
mp3 : Moby - Inside
mp3 : Moby - Natural Blues
mp3 : Moby - South side

If you don't have a copy of this CD, I suggest you click here and do something about it.

It's also worth remembering that a lot of the profits made from this album allowed Mute Records to keep a few less commercial and poorly-selling artists on the label for a while longer.

Happy Listening.

PS : My dear friend ctelblog over at the Acid Ted blogpot has also given us his fond memories of this album, and has a similar view that overexposure spoiled things somewhat. He also explains that it is still just too soon for him to listen Play and not get irritated. It's a great piece of writing that I thoroughly recommened you have a look at. Click here.