Play (1999)

Play is the fifth studio album by American electronic musician Moby. It was released on May 17, 1999, through Mute Records internationally and V2 Records in North America. Recording of the album began in mid-1997, following the release of Moby's fourth album, Animal Rights (1996), which deviated from his electronica style; Moby's goal for Play was to return to electronica, blending downtempo with blues and roots music samples. Originally intended to be his final record, the album was recorded at Moby's home studio in Manhattan.

While some of Moby's earlier work had garnered critical and commercial success within the electronic dance music scene, Play was both a critical success and a commercial phenomenon. Initially issued to lackluster sales, it topped numerous album charts months after its release and was certified platinum in more than 20 countries. The album introduced Moby to a worldwide mainstream audience, not only through a large number of hit singles that helped the album to dominate worldwide charts for two years, but also through unprecedented licensing of its songs in films, television shows, and commercials. Play eventually became one of the biggest-selling electronica albums of all time, with over 12 million copies sold worldwide.

In 2003 and 2012, Play was ranked number 341 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Background

The second half of the 1990s saw Moby in career turmoil after years of success in the techno scene. The release in 1996 of Animal Rights, a dark, eclectic, guitar-fueled record built around the punk and metal records that he loved as a teenager, proved a critical and commercial disaster that left him contemplating quitting music altogether. He explained: "I was opening for Soundgarden and getting shit thrown at me every night onstage. I did my own tour and was playing to roughly fifty people a night." However, positive reactions to Animal Rights from fellow artists such as Terence Trent D'Arby, Axl Rose, and Bono inspired Moby to continue producing music.

Moby started work on Play in August 1997 and put it on hold several times to complete touring obligations. At the time, he planned on making the album his last before ending his career. Recording sessions took place at Moby's Mott Street home studio in Manhattan, New York. Play was delayed due to Moby's dissatisfaction with the initial mix of the album that he had produced at home. A second mixing was completed at an outside studio before attempts at two other studios displayed similar results. After returning home and producing a mix by himself, Moby felt happy with it. Ultimately, he said that he "wasted a lot of time and money" on the previous unsatisfactory mixing sessions. Moby recalled a moment from March 1999, after Play had been mixed and sequenced, where he sat on the grass in Sara Delano Roosevelt Park: "I was sitting by the little tire swings that had been chewed apart by the pit bulls [...] thinking to myself, 'When this record comes out, it will be the end of my career. I should start thinking about what else I can do.'" At that point, he considered returning to school to study architecture.

When Moby finished recording Play, there was no sign that the album would perform any differently than Animal Rights. While he remained signed to the label Mute, which issued his records in the United Kingdom, Elektra had dropped him from its roster of artists following the release of Animal Rights, leaving him without an outlet to release Play in the United States. According to Moby, he shopped the record to every major label, from Warner Bros. to Sony to RCA, and was rejected every time. After V2 finally picked it up, his publicist sent the record to journalists, many of whom declined to listen to it. Moby's manager Eric Härle said that their original goal was to sell 250,000 copies, which was what Everything Is Wrong (1995), Moby's biggest-selling album at the time, had sold.

Music

According to Spin magazine's Will Hermes, Play was "the high-water mark for populist electronica" and a "millennial roots and blues masterwork", while John Bush from AllMusic said it balanced Moby's early electronica sound with the emergent breakbeat style of techno. Chicago Sun-Times critic Jim DeRogatis noted its incorporation of such disparate musical influences as early blues, African-American folk music, gospel, hip-hop, disco, and techno, "all within the context of his own distinctly melodic ambient stylings." Complex described Play as "an organic downtempo masterpiece" that fused live studio recordings and "found sounds".