John Bush, All Music Guide

Following a notorious flirtation with alternative rock, Moby returned to the electronic dance mainstream on the 1997 album I Like to Score. With 1999's Play, he made yet another leap back toward the electronica base that had passed him by during the mid-'90s. The first two tracks, "Honey" and "Find My Baby," weave short blues or gospel vocal samples around rather disinterested breakbeat techno. This version of blues-meets-electronica is undoubtedly intriguing to the all-important NPR crowd, but it is more than just a bit gimmicky to any techno fans who know their Carl Craig from Carl Cox. Fortunately, Moby redeems himself in a big way over the rest of the album with a spate of tracks that return him to the evocative, melancholy techno that's been a specialty since his early days. The tinkly piano line and warped string samples on "Porcelain" frame a meaningful, devastatingly understated vocal from the man himself, while "South Side" is just another pop song by someone who shouldn't be singing — that is, until the transcendent chorus redeems everything. Surprisingly, many of Moby's vocal tracks are highlights; he has an unerring sense of how to frame his fragile vocals with sympathetic productions. Occasionally, the similarities to contemporary dance superstars like Fatboy Slim and Chemical Brothers are just a bit too close for comfort, as on the stale big-beat anthem "Bodyrock." Still, Moby shows himself back in the groove after a long hiatus, balancing his sublime early sound with the breakbeat techno evolution of the '90s.

Beth Massa, Amazon.com

Those who have followed Moby's career are familiar by now with his deep convictions and spiritual connection. On his 1999 release, Play, he celebrates his faith in a masterful, unobtrusive way, channeling gospel and other inspirational samples through beats so earthy they could grow grass on a cement dance floor. It's impossible to separate the joy of the message from the joy of the grooves.

Matthew Cooke, Amazon.co.uk

The great iconoclast of techno returns with a smooth, sacred, and exhilarating record. Play's concoction of breakbeat rhythms, ambient mixology, and inspired blues and gospel samples cry out across musical genres and histories, imparting a time-tested wisdom to beat-driven ears. Moby's devout faith--in both God and his own musical whims--give this approach a sort of legitimacy that another, less sincere artist would never have. That sincerity reverberates through the beats and instrumental eclecticism like a pulse. The soulful refrains and proclamations in "Find My Baby" and "Natural Blues" somehow nestle between straight-up dance-floor rave-ups ("Bodyrock") and melt-in-your-mouth ambience ("Inside") with an effortless grace. Moby reaches across his turntables and finds something pure--almost organic. In fact, the album feels more natural than techno is ever supposed to feel, more spiritual than what DJs are supposed to be able to muster, and more alive than it has any right to be.

Jon Dolan, Barnes & Noble

Before Fatboy Slim and Prodigy took dance music up the pop charts, a kid from Connecticut with a background in punk rock and hip-hop hit huge with a record called "Go," soon ascending to become techno's first star. With classics like Everything Is Wrong and the Move EP, Moby made techno so euphorically exciting even rock 'n' rollers couldn't ignore it, and he continued to push boundaries with forays into heavy metal and film music. In that tradition, Moby's new Play is his most adventurous album to date. Throughout, the maestro ingeniously hops around the map. Blues vocals and field recordings (gathered by ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax in the '30s) are sampled above florid hip-hop beats ("Honey"); a simpering slide guitar gels with an elegiac, gospel-tinged pop anthem ("South Side"); punk guitars rip through a funky street jam ("Bodyrock"). Of course, there's also enough straight-ahead techno and ambient music to satisfy longtime fans, but the heart of this excellent album is a restless sense of experimentation that passes over the block-rockin' beats and instead pursues a few fascinating avenues of expression.

Personnel: Moby (vocals, various instruments, samples); Pilar Basso, Reggie Matthews, The Shining Light Gospel Choir (vocals).
Includes liner notes by Moby.

PLAY was nominated for the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance. "Bodyrock" was nominated for the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.
"Natural Blues" was nominated for the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording.

A marked departure from the sound of his groundbreaking EVERYTHING IS WRONG and his subsequent hard-edged output, PLAY finds Moby charting new territory. Abandoning the breakneck drive of techno punk for looser, groovier structures entrenched in dance-oriented hip-hop brings a whole new feeling to Moby's vast and varied sonic canvas. Several songs, including the hit single "Honey," are distinguished by the appearance of early American field recordings, looped bits of African American spirituals and folk songs culled from the Alan Lomax catalogue.
Moby's penchant for complex composition is in evidence here, as layer after layer of keyboard ornamentation, percussive effects, guitar, vocals (Moby sings and also plays all the instruments), and pulsing, echoing beats create a rich, deeply textured tapestry. PLAY shows that Moby's sophisticated sense of sound collage hasn't dulled, and the combination of these wide-ranging sonic experiments with unique historical samples and rootsier, more accessible beats indicates his ever-changing vision as an artist.

Steve Ciabattoni, CMJ New Music Report, issue 620, May 31, 1999

Moby shows his face more frequently than most electronic wizards, making him an easily identifiable icon of dance culture. But the man born Richard Hall also invests sizable chunks of heart and soul into his work, revealing the motives and emotions of the man behind the moniker. He further illuminates his mindset in essays -- printed in Play's CD booklet -- about religious fundamentalism, vegan diets and other topics. On the actual disc, the subject matter of Moby's material is as intriguing as his musical technique. Relying heavily on vocal samples of great Southern spiritual and blues singers, he has crafted an album of uniquely affecting soul. While disco, jazz and funk have always been a remixers' favorite flavors, this onetime hardcore kid has found a way to match studio grooves with gospel harmony and deep blues. Lush instrumental tracks and moody, downtempo, vocal cuts (courtesy of Mr. Hall himself) round out the record. Also, be sure not to miss the addictive "Bodyrock," an orchestrated hip-hop/rock nugget that'll appeal to all those fatboy funk-soul brothers, and more.

Joshua Ostroff, Ottawa Sun/JAM! Music, June 6, 1999

I somehow get the impression that when Moby says play, it's the listener who is getting played.

Jumping from techno and house to punk and metal with little concern for consistency, Moby's albums have been a test for fans who can't get a grasp on who he is.

This latest record, Play takes the journey into even weirder places.

Mixing vocal samples from early century black folk recordings and playing his own instruments, the record starts off on a brilliantly bizarre trip, combining old world soul with hip-hop breakbeats (especially on Honey and Run On).

Unfortunately, Moby then decided to sing a few songs himself. And his instrumental tracks are simultaneously boring and bombastic and, worst of all, lacking in innovative beats.

But the blues stuff is very cool.

'Baldy dance bloke, vegan Christian, sampled Twin Peaks, went metal, then went back, allegedly big in America.'
So reads the current entry in the rock history books for New York maverick Moby. But that's barely the half of it.

After his less than convincing foray into industrial techno metal on 'Animal Rights', as white, inhuman and sexless a record as he could manage, and 1997's more accessible 'I Like To Score' soundtracks album, now he's delving into the roots of black music for inspiration. Crazy name, crazy guy. 'Play' encompasses hip-hop beats, funky grooves, samples of old blues hollering, big house emotionalism, and slow, smouldering soul. And for a man who always decried the navel-gazing, anti-dancing snobbery of 'intelligent' techno, it seems a much more natural habitat.

Witness natural born dancefloor grooves like 'Honey' and 'Find My Baby' and the old-skool hip-hop of 'Bodyrock'. Meanwhile, on 'Natural Blues' the old-school blues crooner sounds like he always had a live rave PA element to his music. This is when Moby's much-vaunted eclecticism works brilliantly, sounding more godlike than Jesus Jones-like.

None of which is likely to top the charts or endear him any further to the dance cognoscenti. But in ploughing a unique furrow in pop music, he demands your enjoyment as much as your respect.

Brent DiCrescenzo, Pitchfork Media

For those Connecticut hardcore kids (of what I like to call the "Hartcord" scene) who don't know, the drummer from the Pork Guys moonlights as a techno superstar! Believe it or not, but when he's not playing New England basements, Moby entertains thousands of dopamine- intake- inhibited kids. Although his musical output has been varied in sound, it's been predictable in emotion and execution. One can always count on an album full of filler, a few buried dance gems, over- thought moods, some preaching, and banal new- age tendencies. It's commendable of Moby to make each album a unified experiment, but imagine how great an LP of his career's best bits would be. Instead we're consistently left with "the ambient stuff," "the house stuff," "the punk stuff," and now "the blues stuff."

Play opens with the butt- shuffling "Honey." A stuttering bass line and thudding piano shouts out "nas-tee!" (It also mummbles, "Fatboy Slim does this sort of thing better.") Picture products spinning over a stark, white background. The next few tracks keep up a sweaty, soulful pace. "Porcelain" tenderly glides down throats like lithium. "South Side" is the closest Moby has come to writing a radio- friendly pop song. "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad" asks just that in an ad nauseum sample loop over some hip-hop beats, syrupy synthesizer, and blues guitar. Okay, so what we have so far are the makings of a great EP. But from here on out, the album deliquesces into a warm puddle of generic ambient, techno, and trip-hop (mostly ambient).

The throbbing "Machete" rips off Underworld as much as legally possible. The somber "7" offers only brief respite from higher dbs and bpms. Moby's flaw is that he comes across as too genuine-- too wholesome. Play tries to juggle an academic love of music history, a primal desire to groove, a uniform movement towards the "peaceful" and "beautiful," vegan manifestos, and studio wizardry. Thus, we are left with the aural equivalent of a "For Better or For Worse" cartoon or a romantic comedy. If only Moby would tip the scale in any one direction.

The sampling and processing of passionate folk and blues roots music drains whatever emotional ballast kept the music so spiritually afloat; although, this is more of the fault of innate digital recording techniques than Moby's talent. A performance loses raw magnetism after being chopped up in ProTools, cut from its atmosphere, cleaned, and gutted from its accompanying guitar. After this process, the blues on Play become nothing more than a quirky sample. The fact that he added gobs of synthesized mayonnaise doesn't help, either.

Ultimately, Play's best moments are 100% Moby. Y'see, Moby has talent. What he needs is an editor and some of that good ol' fashioned Pork Guys punk energy. Without those essential ingredients, Play offers only one intriguing listen. In short, it's fun and functional, yet disposable: Play is the condom of rock.

Steve Malins, Q Magazine

Moby's well-documented eclecticism has inspired both an erratically brilliant album, 1995's Everything Is Wrong, and the ill-conceived thrash punk of Animal Rights. At the height of the electronica hype in America last year this diminutive bald chap was largely forgotten but Play's inventiveness will restore his reputation as a puck-like, maverick talent. Moby's visceral use of early blues samples is at the heart of Play, creating achingly emotional pieces such as Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?, before the choirs, liquid piano runs and swirling analogue synthesizers kick in. The gorgeous Porcelain and Rushing follow-up the prettier, ambient moments of Everything Is Wrong and the equally heartwarming Honey, Natural Blues and Find My Baby are rooted in relaxed hip hop rhythms.

Barry Walters, Rolling Stone, issue 815, 1999

Since he put New York on the techno map with the seminal 1990 trance track "Go," Moby has gone on to become a decent punk rocker, a virtuous ambient doodler and an even better soundtrack composer. But his calling remains convention-twisting, explosively emotive dance music. With Play, electronica's outspoken icon bounces back to make the true successor to his club-centered 1995 landmark, Everything Is Wrong.

Whereas that album focused on booming, four-to-the-floor tech pop, Play embraces both hip-hop syncopations and Alan Lomax's field recordings of early-twentieth-century African-American folk music to create time-traveling beatbox hymns. "Honey" features Bessie Jones' bluesy vamp over plunking piano and shuffling funk. "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?" showcases anguished gospel cries on a stage of glowing synths, while "Bodyrock" simultaneously suggests Fatboy Slim and Joy Division. Moby sing-speaks, plays innumerable instruments and crafts complex soulful harmonies out of simple, alienated elements. The ebb and flow of eighteen concise, contrasting cuts writes a story about Moby's beautifully conflicted interior world while giving the outside planet beats and tunes on which to groove. Read it with your heart and hips.

© Frank Steven Groen