Play (Moby album)
Encyclopedia
Play is the fifth studio album
by American electronica
musician Moby
, released on May 17, 1999 on V2 Records
. While some of Moby's earlier work garnered critical and commercial success within the electronic dance music
scene, Play was both a critical success and a commercial phenomenon. 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 his music in films, television, and commercial advertisements. It eventually became the biggest-selling album of its genre, with over 10 million copies sold worldwide. According to Rolling Stone
, "Play wasn't the first album to make a rock star out of an insular techno nerdnik, but it was the first to make one a pop sensation. [...] Play made post-modernism cuddly, slowly but surely striking a chord with critics and record-buyers alike."
One of the notable aspects of Play, as opposed to other electronic
albums of the time, was the way in which it combined old gospel
and folk music
rhythms with modern house
sensibilities. Moby sampled heavily from the collected field recordings of Alan Lomax
in songs such as "Honey
", "Find My Baby", and "Natural Blues
", while the track "Run On
" was inspired by the traditional "God's Gonna Cut You Down". The album also has more purely electronic tracks, as well as the rock-influenced single "South Side
" and the more ambient
"Porcelain
". In 2003, the album was ranked number 341 on Rolling Stone
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
.
, 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 considering quitting music altogether and going back to school to study architecture. 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, he claimed, "I got one piece of fan mail from Terence Trent D'Arby and I got a phone call from Axl Rose
saying he was listening to Animal Rights on repeat. Bono
told me he loved Animal Rights. So if you're gonna have three pieces of fan mail, that's the fan mail to get."
When he finally recorded its follow-up, Play, there was no sign that the album would perform any differently than Animal Rights. According to Moby, he shipped 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, and many of them made a huge production of saying they weren't even going to listen to it. According to manager Eric Härle in an interview with HitQuarters
, their original goal was sell 250,000 copies, which was what Everything Is Wrong
, Moby's biggest selling album at the time, had sold.
Released on May 17, 1999, Play received some good reviews, but initially underperformed commercially. Moby stated, "First show that I did on the tour for Play was in the basement of the Virgin Megastore
in Union Square
. Literally playing music while people were waiting in line buying CDs. Maybe forty people came."
on May 29, 1999, but during the rest of the year only spent five further weeks inside the charts. It was on January 15, 2000 that the album re-entered the UK charts, slowly climbing positions and finally reaching number 1 three months later. According to Moby, "almost a year after it came out in 2000 I was opening up for Bush
on an MTV
Campus Invasion Tour. It was degrading for the most part. Their audience had less than no interest in me. February in 2000, I was in Minnesota
, I was depressed and my manager called me to tell me that Play was #1 in the UK, and had beat out Santana
's Supernatural. I was like, 'But the record came out 10 months ago.' That's when I knew, all of a sudden, that things were different. Then it was #1 in France
, in Australia
, in Germany
—it just kept piling on. [...] The week Play was released, it sold, worldwide around 6,000 copies. Eleven months after Play was released, it was selling 150,000 copies a week. I was on tour constantly, drunk pretty much the entire time and it was just a blur. And then all of a sudden movie stars started coming to my concerts and I started getting invited to fancy parties and suddenly the journalists who wouldn't return my publicist's calls were talking about doing cover stories. It was a really odd phenomenon."
Play sold over 10 million copies sold worldwide. Despite only reaching number 38 in the United States
Billboard 200
, over two million were sold there, with the album enjoying steady sales for months and constant popularity. In the UK, Play reached number 1 on April 15, 2000 (spending five weeks at the top) in the wake of the success of the "Natural Blues" single. It remained very high in the charts during the rest of the year, particularly supported by the huge success of its successors, "Porcelain" and "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?". Spending almost the entire year 2000 in the charts, and achieving a total of 81 weeks overall the lists, it became the fifth best-selling album of 2000 in the UK.
Play found its major strengths on the support of its impressive string of nine hit singles, an unprecedented feat for an electronica album. Seven of those singles were UK Top 40 hits - "Honey", the first single, was already in the market in August 1998, nearly ten months before the release of the actual album. The final single choice was "Find My Baby", which appeared on some national charts three and a half years after. One of the most notable aspects of the singles releases is that some of the strongest titles were released very late ("Porcelain", for example, was the sixth single from the album, released over a year after Play), on the way of securing a steady presence of the album in the charts.
The apparent result of the marketing strategy was that the album, after an unremarkable debut, stayed on the charts for several years and broke sales projections for Moby and for the dance music scene, which was not seen to be a dominant commercial genre in the US in the 1990s (as compared with in Europe, where Moby had initially found fame). Overall, then, in many ways this album helped to establish Moby as a mainstream musician. His later albums have been more downtempo
-oriented, frequently featuring his own distinctive singing, often with female vocalists and samples similar to those on Play, as opposed to his earlier more club- or alternative-oriented records where he rarely sang.
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 84, based on 20 reviews, which indicates "Universal acclaim". Robert Christgau
praised the album by giving it an A+, celebrating "his grooves, his pacing, his textures, his harmonies, sometimes his tunes, and mostly his grooves, which honor not just dance music but the entire rock tradition it's part of." Barry Walters from Rolling Stone
gave the album 4 stars out of 5, declaring that "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". For John Bush from Allmusic, Play represented "another leap back toward the electronica base that had passed him by during the mid-'90s" but also represented the album that "return(ed) him to the evocative, melancholy techno that's been a specialty since his early days", and in some way found him "balancing his sublime early sound with the breakbeat techno evolution of the '90s". Bush selected Play as one of his pick albums. However, the fusion of gospel and house for which the album was =most widely praised, also drew some criticism for Moby's style of appropriation, with some critics claiming not enough credit was going to the original (often anonymous) musicians and performers. Others found the commercial use of songs featuring old blues
samples to be in poor taste, although once the songs were licensed, Moby did not have personal control over how they were used. Moby also declares his Christian faith in the liner notes of the album, which some took as evidence that his interest in gospel samples was "in good faith" and not purely aesthetic.
Play was voted as the best album of the year in the Village Voice
Pazz & Jop
critics poll. In 2003, the album was ranked number 341 on Rolling Stone
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
.
s, television shows, or commercials and this proved a major contributor to the album's success. This is a feat that has been accomplished by only three other artists; Celldweller
, Meiko, and The Crystal Method
. At the time the album came out, Moby explained that he licensed the songs because it was the only way he could get the music heard. Moby's previous album Animal Rights
, a foray into the alternative rock
scene, had not drawn many listeners, while Moby's earlier music was known primarily to fans of dance
and ambient music
and had not achieved mainstream recognition in his home country of the United States.
According to his manager Eric Härle, although many people believed the songs were pitched for advertisements as part of the marketing campaign for an album that didn't fit with mainstream radio, the licensing actually came as a result of agencies asking for permission to use the music as soundbeds. Härle told HitQuarters
that the music was so popular because it is very evocative and emotional. Despite the heavy licensing, the adverts selected were nevertheless very carefully chosen and more requests were turned down than accepted.
One of the more notable commercials featured golf
er Tiger Woods
playing a round of golf around New York City
to the tune of "Find My Baby", but countless other uses of the album's songs are documented. According to Wired magazine, the songs on Play "have been sold hundreds of times ... a licensing venture so staggeringly lucrative that the album was a financial success months before it reached its multi-platinum sales total."
Among the films which have used music tracks from the album are "Gone in 60 Seconds
" and "Swing Vote
", both of which featured the B-side "Flower", which sampled "Green Sally Up", a children's playground song sung by vocalists Mattie Garder, Mary Gardner and Jesse Lee Pratcher, from the 1961 album Sounds of the South (re-released in 1993). The television show The X-Files
featured the track "My Weakness" in the opening and closing scenes of the seventh season episode "Closure
", and the track "The Sky is Broken" in the seventh season episode "all things".
("Porcelain"), Roman Coppola
("Honey"), Joseph Kahn
("South Side"), and David LaChapelle
("Natural Blues").
on the 1993 Sounds of the South: A Musical Journey from the Georgia Sea Islands to the Mississippi Delta. Most of the samples were very short and constantly repeated throughout the songs. For example, "Honey" used a sample from Bessie Jones
that consisted of a conjunction of four verses that was repeated over twenty times. In the liner notes for the album, Moby gave "special thanks to the Lomaxes and all of the archivists and music historians whose field recordings made this record possible."
Samples
Vocals
.
), including an extra disc of B-side tracks (that disc would be also released separately in 2004). In addition, a mix of the song "South Side" which featured a duet with No Doubt
frontwoman Gwen Stefani
was released as a single (becoming his only song to ever appear on the Billboard Hot 100
, peaking at number 14). Thanks to its music video and heavy airplay, the song helped to push the success of the album even further. Later on, Play was re-released with the single version of "South Side" featuring Gwen Stefani replacing the original. (Other copies had an additional CD with the newer version of the song shrink-wrapped in the same package.) The original version was re-released on the U.S. edition of Moby's Go: The Very Best of Moby compilation.
B-sides not featured on the album Play: The B Sides
:
Section I: Play the Videos
Section II: Live on Later... With Jools Holland
Section III: Moby's Megamix
Section IV: Give an Idiot a Camcorder (a 20-minute movie "by Moby starring Moby")
Section V: Play the Computer (this section allows to use the Beatnik Player to remix two of Moby's songs.)
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
by American electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
musician Moby
Moby
Richard Melville Hall , better known by his stage name Moby, is an American musician, DJ, and photographer. He is known mainly for his sample-based electronic music and his outspoken liberal political views, including his support of veganism and animal rights.Moby gained attention in the early...
, released on May 17, 1999 on V2 Records
V2 Records
V2 Records is a record label that is owned by Universal Music Group as of October 2007. The label was founded in 1996 by Richard Branson, five years after he sold Virgin Records to EMI....
. While some of Moby's earlier work garnered critical and commercial success within the electronic dance music
Electronic dance music
Electronic dance music is electronic music produced primarily for the purposes of use within a nightclub setting, or in an environment that is centered upon dance-based entertainment...
scene, Play was both a critical success and a commercial phenomenon. 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 his music in films, television, and commercial advertisements. It eventually became the biggest-selling album of its genre, with over 10 million copies sold worldwide. According to Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, "Play wasn't the first album to make a rock star out of an insular techno nerdnik, but it was the first to make one a pop sensation. [...] Play made post-modernism cuddly, slowly but surely striking a chord with critics and record-buyers alike."
One of the notable aspects of Play, as opposed to other electronic
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
albums of the time, was the way in which it combined old gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
and folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
rhythms with modern house
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
sensibilities. Moby sampled heavily from the collected field recordings of Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...
in songs such as "Honey
Honey (Moby song)
"Honey" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, released as the first single from his 1999 studio album Play. It peaked at number 33 on the UK Singles Chart....
", "Find My Baby", and "Natural Blues
Natural Blues
"Natural Blues" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, released as the fifth single from his 1999 studio album Play. It samples "Trouble So Hard" by American folk singer Vera Hall. It was first released in the UK, where it peaked at number eleven....
", while the track "Run On
God's Gonna Cut You Down
"God's Gonna Cut You Down", also known as "Run On" and "Run On for a Long Time", is a traditional folk song which has been recorded by numerous artists representing a variety of genres...
" was inspired by the traditional "God's Gonna Cut You Down". The album also has more purely electronic tracks, as well as the rock-influenced single "South Side
South Side (song)
"South Side" is the title of a song written and recorded by American electronica musician Moby. It was released in November 2000 as the eighth single from his 1999 studio album Play...
" and the more ambient
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
"Porcelain
Porcelain (song)
"Porcelain" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, featured as the third track and released as the sixth single from his album Play. It was released on June 12, 2000 in the UK, and reached number 5 in the UK charts, Moby's highest chart position there to date. The U.S...
". In 2003, the album was ranked number 341 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
.
Background
The second half of the nineties saw Moby in career turmoil after years of being a successful techno wunderkind. The release in 1996 of Animal RightsAnimal Rights (album)
Animal Rights is the fourth studio album by American electronica musician Moby, released on September 23, 1996.- Background :Moby's decision to release a punk rock album was in part the result of being disillusioned by the lack of positive media feedback he had been receiving from the music media...
, 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 considering quitting music altogether and going back to school to study architecture. He explained: "I was opening for Soundgarden
Soundgarden
Soundgarden is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington in 1984 by singer Chris Cornell, lead guitarist Kim Thayil, and bassist Hiro Yamamoto...
and getting shit thrown at me every night onstage. I did my own tour and was playing to roughly fifty people a night." However, he claimed, "I got one piece of fan mail from Terence Trent D'Arby and I got a phone call from Axl Rose
Axl Rose
W. Axl Rose is an American singer-songwriter and musician. He is the lead vocalist and only remaining original member of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he enjoyed great success and recognition in the late 1980s and early 1990s, before disappearing from the public eye for several years...
saying he was listening to Animal Rights on repeat. Bono
Bono
Paul David Hewson , most commonly known by his stage name Bono , is an Irish singer, musician, and humanitarian best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his...
told me he loved Animal Rights. So if you're gonna have three pieces of fan mail, that's the fan mail to get."
When he finally recorded its follow-up, Play, there was no sign that the album would perform any differently than Animal Rights. According to Moby, he shipped the record to every major label (from Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
to Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
to RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
) and was rejected every time. After V2
V2 Records
V2 Records is a record label that is owned by Universal Music Group as of October 2007. The label was founded in 1996 by Richard Branson, five years after he sold Virgin Records to EMI....
finally picked it up, his publicist sent the record to journalists, and many of them made a huge production of saying they weren't even going to listen to it. According to manager Eric Härle in an interview with HitQuarters
HitQuarters
HitQuarters is an international music industry publication and contact database founded in 1999. It is noted for in-depth interviews with industry figures, with past subjects including Simon Cowell, Martin Kierszenbaum, Jason Flom, Diane Warren, Peter Edge, Ron Fair and RedOne, as well as its A&R...
, their original goal was sell 250,000 copies, which was what Everything Is Wrong
Everything Is Wrong
Everything Is Wrong is the third studio album by American electronica musician Moby, released in 1995. The album was Moby’s first acclaimed electronica album, but true mainstream success did not come about until the release of his 1999 album, Play....
, Moby's biggest selling album at the time, had sold.
Released on May 17, 1999, Play received some good reviews, but initially underperformed commercially. Moby stated, "First show that I did on the tour for Play was in the basement of the Virgin Megastore
Virgin Megastore
Virgin Megastores is an international chain of record shops, founded by Sir Richard Branson on London's Oxford Street in early 1971. Virgin Megastores are best described today as entertainment retailers....
in Union Square
Union Square (New York City)
Union Square is a public square in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York.It is an important and historic intersection, located where Broadway and the former Bowery Road – now Fourth Avenue – came together in the early 19th century; its name celebrates neither the...
. Literally playing music while people were waiting in line buying CDs. Maybe forty people came."
Unexpected blockbuster success
First sales of the Play album were very poor. In the UK, it debuted at number 33 on the UK Albums ChartUK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
on May 29, 1999, but during the rest of the year only spent five further weeks inside the charts. It was on January 15, 2000 that the album re-entered the UK charts, slowly climbing positions and finally reaching number 1 three months later. According to Moby, "almost a year after it came out in 2000 I was opening up for Bush
Bush (band)
Bush are an alternative rock band formed in London in 1992 shortly after vocalist/guitarist Gavin Rossdale and guitarist Nigel Pulsford met in a London nightclub. Realising they shared a love for such diverse artists as the Pixies, Bob Marley, The Jesus Lizard, MC5, Nirvana, Hüsker Dü, and Big...
on an MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
Campus Invasion Tour. It was degrading for the most part. Their audience had less than no interest in me. February in 2000, I was in Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, I was depressed and my manager called me to tell me that Play was #1 in the UK, and had beat out Santana
Santana (band)
Santana is a rock band based around guitarist Carlos Santana and founded in the late 1960s. It first came to public attention after their performing the song "Soul Sacrifice" at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, when their Latin rock provided a contrast to other acts on the bill...
's Supernatural. I was like, 'But the record came out 10 months ago.' That's when I knew, all of a sudden, that things were different. Then it was #1 in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
—it just kept piling on. [...] The week Play was released, it sold, worldwide around 6,000 copies. Eleven months after Play was released, it was selling 150,000 copies a week. I was on tour constantly, drunk pretty much the entire time and it was just a blur. And then all of a sudden movie stars started coming to my concerts and I started getting invited to fancy parties and suddenly the journalists who wouldn't return my publicist's calls were talking about doing cover stories. It was a really odd phenomenon."
Play sold over 10 million copies sold worldwide. Despite only reaching number 38 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
, over two million were sold there, with the album enjoying steady sales for months and constant popularity. In the UK, Play reached number 1 on April 15, 2000 (spending five weeks at the top) in the wake of the success of the "Natural Blues" single. It remained very high in the charts during the rest of the year, particularly supported by the huge success of its successors, "Porcelain" and "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?". Spending almost the entire year 2000 in the charts, and achieving a total of 81 weeks overall the lists, it became the fifth best-selling album of 2000 in the UK.
Play found its major strengths on the support of its impressive string of nine hit singles, an unprecedented feat for an electronica album. Seven of those singles were UK Top 40 hits - "Honey", the first single, was already in the market in August 1998, nearly ten months before the release of the actual album. The final single choice was "Find My Baby", which appeared on some national charts three and a half years after. One of the most notable aspects of the singles releases is that some of the strongest titles were released very late ("Porcelain", for example, was the sixth single from the album, released over a year after Play), on the way of securing a steady presence of the album in the charts.
The apparent result of the marketing strategy was that the album, after an unremarkable debut, stayed on the charts for several years and broke sales projections for Moby and for the dance music scene, which was not seen to be a dominant commercial genre in the US in the 1990s (as compared with in Europe, where Moby had initially found fame). Overall, then, in many ways this album helped to establish Moby as a mainstream musician. His later albums have been more downtempo
Downtempo
Downtempo is a laid-back electronic music style similar to ambient music, but usually with a beat or groove unlike the beatless forms of Ambient music. The beat is sometimes made from loops that have a hypnotic feeling...
-oriented, frequently featuring his own distinctive singing, often with female vocalists and samples similar to those on Play, as opposed to his earlier more club- or alternative-oriented records where he rarely sang.
Reception
The album was received negatively at first, but gained praise later on. At MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 84, based on 20 reviews, which indicates "Universal acclaim". Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
praised the album by giving it an A+, celebrating "his grooves, his pacing, his textures, his harmonies, sometimes his tunes, and mostly his grooves, which honor not just dance music but the entire rock tradition it's part of." Barry Walters from Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
gave the album 4 stars out of 5, declaring that "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". For John Bush from Allmusic, Play represented "another leap back toward the electronica base that had passed him by during the mid-'90s" but also represented the album that "return(ed) him to the evocative, melancholy techno that's been a specialty since his early days", and in some way found him "balancing his sublime early sound with the breakbeat techno evolution of the '90s". Bush selected Play as one of his pick albums. However, the fusion of gospel and house for which the album was =most widely praised, also drew some criticism for Moby's style of appropriation, with some critics claiming not enough credit was going to the original (often anonymous) musicians and performers. Others found the commercial use of songs featuring old blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
samples to be in poor taste, although once the songs were licensed, Moby did not have personal control over how they were used. Moby also declares his Christian faith in the liner notes of the album, which some took as evidence that his interest in gospel samples was "in good faith" and not purely aesthetic.
Play was voted as the best album of the year in the Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
Pazz & Jop
Pazz & Jop
The Pazz & Jop critics' poll is a poll of music critics run by The Village Voice newspaper. It is compiled every year from the top ten lists of hundreds of music critics...
critics poll. In 2003, the album was ranked number 341 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
.
Licensing of songs
Play was the first album ever to have all of its tracks licensed for use in filmFilm
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s, television shows, or commercials and this proved a major contributor to the album's success. This is a feat that has been accomplished by only three other artists; Celldweller
Celldweller
Celldweller is a Detroit, Michigan-based Electronic Rock project that was created by multi-instrumentalist Klayton, former frontman and songwriter of the bands Circle of Dust, Argyle Park, Angeldust . Celldweller's music is multi-faceted, often labeled electronic rock and more commonly being...
, Meiko, and The Crystal Method
The Crystal Method
The Crystal Method is an American electronic music duo that was created in Los Angeles, California by Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland in the early 1990s. The Crystal Method's music has appeared in numerous TV shows, films, video games, and advertisements. The most prominent is the US television...
. At the time the album came out, Moby explained that he licensed the songs because it was the only way he could get the music heard. Moby's previous album Animal Rights
Animal Rights (album)
Animal Rights is the fourth studio album by American electronica musician Moby, released on September 23, 1996.- Background :Moby's decision to release a punk rock album was in part the result of being disillusioned by the lack of positive media feedback he had been receiving from the music media...
, a foray into the alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
scene, had not drawn many listeners, while Moby's earlier music was known primarily to fans of dance
Electronic dance music
Electronic dance music is electronic music produced primarily for the purposes of use within a nightclub setting, or in an environment that is centered upon dance-based entertainment...
and ambient music
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
and had not achieved mainstream recognition in his home country of the United States.
According to his manager Eric Härle, although many people believed the songs were pitched for advertisements as part of the marketing campaign for an album that didn't fit with mainstream radio, the licensing actually came as a result of agencies asking for permission to use the music as soundbeds. Härle told HitQuarters
HitQuarters
HitQuarters is an international music industry publication and contact database founded in 1999. It is noted for in-depth interviews with industry figures, with past subjects including Simon Cowell, Martin Kierszenbaum, Jason Flom, Diane Warren, Peter Edge, Ron Fair and RedOne, as well as its A&R...
that the music was so popular because it is very evocative and emotional. Despite the heavy licensing, the adverts selected were nevertheless very carefully chosen and more requests were turned down than accepted.
One of the more notable commercials featured golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
er Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods
Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Formerly the World No...
playing a round of golf around New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to the tune of "Find My Baby", but countless other uses of the album's songs are documented. According to Wired magazine, the songs on Play "have been sold hundreds of times ... a licensing venture so staggeringly lucrative that the album was a financial success months before it reached its multi-platinum sales total."
Among the films which have used music tracks from the album are "Gone in 60 Seconds
Gone in 60 Seconds (soundtrack)
Gone in 60 Seconds is the soundtrack to the 2000 action film, Gone in 60 Seconds. It was released on June 6, 2000 through the Island Def Jam Music Group and consisted of a blend of alternative rock, electronic and hip hop music...
" and "Swing Vote
Swing Vote (2008 film)
Swing Vote is a 2008 comedy-drama film about an entire U.S. presidential election determined by the vote of one man. It was directed by Joshua Michael Stern and starred Kevin Costner, Paula Patton, Kelsey Grammer, Dennis Hopper, Nathan Lane, Stanley Tucci, George Lopez and Madeline Carroll...
", both of which featured the B-side "Flower", which sampled "Green Sally Up", a children's playground song sung by vocalists Mattie Garder, Mary Gardner and Jesse Lee Pratcher, from the 1961 album Sounds of the South (re-released in 1993). The television show The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
featured the track "My Weakness" in the opening and closing scenes of the seventh season episode "Closure
Closure (The X-Files)
"Closure" is the 150th episode and the eleventh episode of the seventh season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. The episode first aired in the United States and Canada on February 3, 2000 on the Fox Network, and subsequently aired in the United Kingdom. It was written by...
", and the track "The Sky is Broken" in the seventh season episode "all things".
Music videos
The album Play was also notable for producing a large number of music videos. In an impressively extensive period of three and a half years (between August 1998 and February 2002), twelve music videos were commissioned for a total of eight different singles ("Bodyrock" received three music videos). They were produced by a large number of directors, which included Jonas ÅkerlundJonas Åkerlund
Jonas Åkerlund is a Swedish film and music video director, and drummer. He is best known for directing music videos, which are often mock forms of movie trailers and short films...
("Porcelain"), Roman Coppola
Roman Coppola
Roman Coppola is an American film director and music video director.-Early life:Coppola was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, the son of set decorator/artist Eleanor Coppola and Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola was born in the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine while his father was in Paris...
("Honey"), Joseph Kahn
Joseph Kahn
Joseph Kahn is an American music video, advertising, and feature film director.-Early life:Kahn was born in Jersey Village, Texas, a suburb of Houston. He is of Korean ancestry. He spent part of his childhood growing up in Livorno, Italy until his family moved to Texas...
("South Side"), and David LaChapelle
David LaChapelle
David LaChapelle is a photographer and director who works in the fields of fashion, advertising, and fine art photography, and is noted for his surreal, unique, sexualized, and often humorous style.-Early life:...
("Natural Blues").
Use of samples and additional vocals
The album was particularly notable for its extensive use of samples from the field recordings as they were collected by Alan LomaxAlan Lomax
Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...
on the 1993 Sounds of the South: A Musical Journey from the Georgia Sea Islands to the Mississippi Delta. Most of the samples were very short and constantly repeated throughout the songs. For example, "Honey" used a sample from Bessie Jones
Bessie Jones
Bessie Jones , gospel singer from Smithville, GA. She learned her songs from her grandfather, a former slave born in Africa. She was a founding member of the Georgia Sea Island Singers. Alan Lomax first encountered Bessie Jones on a southern trip in 1959...
that consisted of a conjunction of four verses that was repeated over twenty times. In the liner notes for the album, Moby gave "special thanks to the Lomaxes and all of the archivists and music historians whose field recordings made this record possible."
Samples
- "Honey" features samples from the Bessie JonesBessie JonesBessie Jones , gospel singer from Smithville, GA. She learned her songs from her grandfather, a former slave born in Africa. She was a founding member of the Georgia Sea Island Singers. Alan Lomax first encountered Bessie Jones on a southern trip in 1959...
recording "Sometimes" (1960), produced under license from Atlantic Recording Corp. by arrangement with Warner Special Products. - "Find My Baby" features samples from the Boy Blue recording "Joe Lee's Rock", produced under license from Atlantic Recording Corp by arrangement with Warner Special Poducts.
- "Bodyrock" contains a sample of "Love Rap" (1980) as performed by Spoonie GeeSpoonie GeeSpoonie Gee is one of the earliest rap artists, and one of few rap artists to release records in the 1970s. He has been credited with originating the term 'hip hop' and some the themes in his music were precursors of Gangsta rap....
& The Treacherous Three. Used under license from Enjoy Records, Inc. Additional Vocals by Nikki DNikki DNichelle "Nikki D" Strong is an American female rapper. Nikki D was the first female rapper signed by Def Jam Recordings.-Career:She signed with Def Jam in 1989, and released her debut single "A No No No" the same year. It was produced by Sam Sever. The single's video featured Flavor Flav...
. - "Natural Blues" features samples from the Vera HallVera HallAdell Hall Ward, better known as Vera Hall was an American folk singer, born in Livingston, Alabama, United States. She is best known for her song "Trouble So Hard" .-Biography:...
recording "Troubled So Hard" (1937), produced under license from Atlantic Recording Corp. by arrangement with Warner Specials Products. - "Run On" features samples from "Run on for a Long Time" (1947) by Bill Landford & The Landfordaires, used courtesy of Sony Music.
- "If Things Were Perfect" contains a sample of "Hospital Prelude of Love Theme" by Willie HutchWillie HutchWillie McKinley Hutchison, known professionally as Willie Hutch was an American singer, songwriter as well as a record producer and recording artist for the Motown record label during the 1970s and 1980s....
. This is uncredited in the album liner notes. - "Machete" contains a sample of "Apache" by the Incredible Bongo BandIncredible Bongo BandThe Incredible Bongo Band, also known as Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band, was a project started in 1972 by Michael Viner, a record artist manager and executive at MGM Records. Viner was called on to supplement the soundtrack to the virtually anonymous B film The Thing With Two Heads. The...
. This is uncredited in the album liner notes. - "Porcelain" contains a reversed sample from "Fight for Survival" by Ernest Gold. This is uncredited in the album liner notes.
Vocals
- Moby – vocals on "Porcelain", "South Side", "Machete", "If Things Were Perfect", and "The Sky Is Broken"
- Pilar Basso – additional vocals on "Porcelain".
- Shining Light Gospel Choir – vocals on "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad" (also sampled)
- Reggie Matthews – additional vocals on "If Things Were Perfect"
Track listings
The album packaging continues Moby's penchant for including a number of short, self-penned essays exploring ongoing concerns – his support for veganism and humanitarianism, and opposition to fundamentalismFundamentalism
Fundamentalism is strict adherence to specific theological doctrines usually understood as a reaction against Modernist theology. The term "fundamentalism" was originally coined by its supporters to describe a specific package of theological beliefs that developed into a movement within the...
.
- "HoneyHoney (Moby song)"Honey" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, released as the first single from his 1999 studio album Play. It peaked at number 33 on the UK Singles Chart....
" – 3:27 - "Find My BabyFind My Baby"Find My Baby" is a song by American electronica musician Moby released as the ninth and final single from his 1999 studio album Play. It features samples from the song "Joe Lee's Rock" by Boy Blue.- Track listing :# "Find My Baby" – 3:59...
" – 3:58 - "PorcelainPorcelain (song)"Porcelain" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, featured as the third track and released as the sixth single from his album Play. It was released on June 12, 2000 in the UK, and reached number 5 in the UK charts, Moby's highest chart position there to date. The U.S...
" – 4:01 - "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?"Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?" is a song by American electronica musician Moby released as the fourth single from his 1999 album Play.The song managed to chart at number 16 on the UK Singles Chart...
" – 4:23 - "South SideSouth Side (song)"South Side" is the title of a song written and recorded by American electronica musician Moby. It was released in November 2000 as the eighth single from his 1999 studio album Play...
" – 3:48 - "Rushing" – 2:58
- "BodyrockBodyrock"Bodyrock" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, released as the third single from his 1999 studio album Play. The single peaked at number 38 on the UK Singles Chart...
" – 3:34 - "Natural BluesNatural Blues"Natural Blues" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, released as the fifth single from his 1999 studio album Play. It samples "Trouble So Hard" by American folk singer Vera Hall. It was first released in the UK, where it peaked at number eleven....
" – 4:12 - "Machete" – 3:36
- "7" – 1:00
- "Run On" – 3:44
- "Down Slow" – 1:32
- "If Things Were Perfect" – 4:16
- "Everloving" – 3:24
- "Inside" – 4:46
- "Guitar Flute & String" – 2:07
- "The Sky Is Broken" – 4:16
- "My Weakness" – 3:37
B-Sides 1998-2001
- "Ain't Never Learned" – 3:46
- "Arp" – 6:31
- "Down Slow (Full Length Version)" – 5:58
- "Flower" – 3:25
- "Flying Foxes" – 6:16
- "Flying Over the Dateline" – 4:48
- "Memory Gospel" – 6:41
- "Micronesia" – 4:17
- "Princess" – 8:16
- "Running" – 7:07
- "Sick in the System" – 4:17
- "Spirit" – 4:12
- "Sunday" – 5:00
- "Sunspot" – 6:50
- "Summer" – 5:56
- "The Sun Never Stops Setting" – 4:19
- "Whispering Wind" – 6:08
- — from the single "South SideSouth Side (song)"South Side" is the title of a song written and recorded by American electronica musician Moby. It was released in November 2000 as the eighth single from his 1999 studio album Play...
" - — from the single "BodyrockBodyrock"Bodyrock" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, released as the third single from his 1999 studio album Play. The single peaked at number 38 on the UK Singles Chart...
" - — from the single "Run On (Extended)"
- — from the single "Find My BabyFind My Baby"Find My Baby" is a song by American electronica musician Moby released as the ninth and final single from his 1999 studio album Play. It features samples from the song "Joe Lee's Rock" by Boy Blue.- Track listing :# "Find My Baby" – 3:59...
" and "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?/Honey" - — from the single "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?"Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?" is a song by American electronica musician Moby released as the fourth single from his 1999 album Play.The song managed to chart at number 16 on the UK Singles Chart...
" and "PorcelainPorcelain (song)"Porcelain" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, featured as the third track and released as the sixth single from his album Play. It was released on June 12, 2000 in the UK, and reached number 5 in the UK charts, Moby's highest chart position there to date. The U.S...
" (Spain CD-Maxi, Everlasting Records, EVERY 6CD) - — from the single "PorcelainPorcelain (song)"Porcelain" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, featured as the third track and released as the sixth single from his album Play. It was released on June 12, 2000 in the UK, and reached number 5 in the UK charts, Moby's highest chart position there to date. The U.S...
" - — from the single "HoneyHoney (Moby song)"Honey" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, released as the first single from his 1999 studio album Play. It peaked at number 33 on the UK Singles Chart....
" and "Honey/Run On" - — from the single "HoneyHoney (Moby song)"Honey" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, released as the first single from his 1999 studio album Play. It peaked at number 33 on the UK Singles Chart....
" - — from the single "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?"Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?" is a song by American electronica musician Moby released as the fourth single from his 1999 album Play.The song managed to chart at number 16 on the UK Singles Chart...
" - — from the single "Run On" - NOTE: (different version from the album "Play: The B SidesPlay: The B SidesPlay: The B Sides is a B-side compilation album by American electronica musician Moby. It was originally bundled in a limited edition box set in 2000 with Moby's previously acclaimed album, Play, but later released separately on July 27, 2004....
") demo version called "Running Black Woman" - 6:47 - — from the single "Natural BluesNatural Blues"Natural Blues" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, released as the fifth single from his 1999 studio album Play. It samples "Trouble So Hard" by American folk singer Vera Hall. It was first released in the UK, where it peaked at number eleven....
" - — from the single "Run On"
- — from the single "Run On (Extended)", "Run On" (Australia CD-Maxi, Mushroom Records, MUSH1867.2) and "BodyrockBodyrock"Bodyrock" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, released as the third single from his 1999 studio album Play. The single peaked at number 38 on the UK Singles Chart...
" - — from the single "BodyrockBodyrock"Bodyrock" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, released as the third single from his 1999 studio album Play. The single peaked at number 38 on the UK Singles Chart...
" - — from the single "PorcelainPorcelain (song)"Porcelain" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, featured as the third track and released as the sixth single from his album Play. It was released on June 12, 2000 in the UK, and reached number 5 in the UK charts, Moby's highest chart position there to date. The U.S...
" - — from the single "Find My BabyFind My Baby"Find My Baby" is a song by American electronica musician Moby released as the ninth and final single from his 1999 studio album Play. It features samples from the song "Joe Lee's Rock" by Boy Blue.- Track listing :# "Find My Baby" – 3:59...
" and "Natural BluesNatural Blues"Natural Blues" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, released as the fifth single from his 1999 studio album Play. It samples "Trouble So Hard" by American folk singer Vera Hall. It was first released in the UK, where it peaked at number eleven....
" - NOTE: (the single version called "The Whispering Wind") - 6:08
Subsequent releases
In late 2000, Play was re-released as a special edition (entitled Play: The B SidesPlay: The B Sides
Play: The B Sides is a B-side compilation album by American electronica musician Moby. It was originally bundled in a limited edition box set in 2000 with Moby's previously acclaimed album, Play, but later released separately on July 27, 2004....
), including an extra disc of B-side tracks (that disc would be also released separately in 2004). In addition, a mix of the song "South Side" which featured a duet with No Doubt
No Doubt
No Doubt is an American rock band from Anaheim, California that formed in 1986. The ska-pop sound of their first album No Doubt , failed to make an impact...
frontwoman Gwen Stefani
Gwen Stefani
Gwen Renée Stefani is an American singer-songwriter and fashion designer. Stefani is the lead vocalist for the rock and ska band No Doubt. Stefani recorded her first solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. in 2004. The album was inspired by music of the 1980s, and was a success with sales of over...
was released as a single (becoming his only song to ever appear on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
, peaking at number 14). Thanks to its music video and heavy airplay, the song helped to push the success of the album even further. Later on, Play was re-released with the single version of "South Side" featuring Gwen Stefani replacing the original. (Other copies had an additional CD with the newer version of the song shrink-wrapped in the same package.) The original version was re-released on the U.S. edition of Moby's Go: The Very Best of Moby compilation.
B-sides not featured on the album Play: The B Sides
Play: The B Sides
Play: The B Sides is a B-side compilation album by American electronica musician Moby. It was originally bundled in a limited edition box set in 2000 with Moby's previously acclaimed album, Play, but later released separately on July 27, 2004....
:
- "Ain't Never Learned"
- "Arp"
- "Down Slow (Full Length Version)"
- "Micronesia"
- "Princess"
- "Sick in the System"
Play: The DVD
A DVD titled Play: The DVD was released as a companion to the album, featuring most of the music videos of Play (except for "South Side"), a Megamix, a performance on Later... With Jools Holland, a Moby's tour diary entitled Give an Idiot a Camcorder, and a DVD-Rom component where users are able to remix two of Moby's songs. (The DVD also included a separate CD featuring the Megamix on a single track.)Section I: Play the Videos
- "Bodyrock (UK Auditions)"
- "Honey"
- "Find My Baby"
- "Porcelain (UK Version)"
- "Natural Blues"
- "Bodyrock (UK Version)"
- "Run On"
- "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?"
- "Natural Blues (Animated Version)"
- "Porcelain"
Section II: Live on Later... With Jools Holland
- "Natural Blues"
- "Porcelain"
- "Go"
- "New Dawn Fades (If We Can)"
- "Machete"
- "Hymn"
- "Everloving"
- "Porcelain (Acoustic Version)"
Section III: Moby's Megamix
- "Porcelain (Futureshock Remix)"
- "Natural Blues (Katcha Mix)"
- "Honey (Sharam Jey's Sweet Honey Mix)"
- "Bodyrock (Olav Basoski's Da Hot Funk Da Freak Funk Remix)"
- "Natural Blues (Peace Division Dub)"
- "Run On (Dani König Remix)"
- "South Side (Pete Heller Park Lane Vocal)"
- "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? (Katcha Remix)"
- "Natural Blues (Perfecto Remix)"
- "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? (Ferry Corsten Remix)"
- "Porcelain (Torsten Stenzel's Vocal Dub Mix)"
- "South Side (Hybrid Dishing Pump Instrumental)"
- "Natural Blues (Mike D Remix)"
- "Run On (Moby's Young & Funky Mix)"
- "Honey (Moby's 118 Remix)"
- "Bodyrock (Rae & Christian Remix)"
- "Run On (Dave Clarke Remix)"
- "Porcelain (Clubbed to Death Version by Rob Dougan)"
Section IV: Give an Idiot a Camcorder (a 20-minute movie "by Moby starring Moby")
Section V: Play the Computer (this section allows to use the Beatnik Player to remix two of Moby's songs.)
Album chart positions
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart... |
1 |
| Australian ARIA Australian Recording Industry Association The Australian Recording Industry Association is a trade group representing the Australian recording industry which was established in 1983 by six major record companies, EMI, Festival, CBS, RCA, WEA and Universal replacing the Association of Australian Record Manufacturers which was formed in 1956... Albums Chart |
1 | |
| New Zealand Albums Chart | 1 | |
| French Albums Chart | 1 | |
| Billboard Billboard (magazine) Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis... Top Heatseekers Top Heatseekers Top Heatseekers refers to either of two separate "Breaking and Entering" music charts issued weekly by Billboard Magazine: the Heatseekers Albums chart or the Heatseekers Songs chart. They were introduced by Billboard in 1993 with the purpose of highlighting the sales by new and developing musical... |
1 | |
| Norwegian Albums Chart | 2 | |
| Italian Albums Chart | 4 | |
| Belgian Albums Chart | 4 | |
| Dutch Albums Chart | 5 | |
| Mexican Albums Chart | 5 | |
| Austrian Albums Chart | 7 | |
| Swiss Albums Chart | 12 | |
| Canadian Albums Chart | 13 | |
| Sweden Albums Chart | 14 | |
| Finnish Albums Chart | 18 | |
| German Albums Chart | 21 | |
| U.S. Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
38 |
Singles
Nine singles were released from Play:| Single information |
|---|
| "Honey Honey (Moby song) "Honey" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, released as the first single from his 1999 studio album Play. It peaked at number 33 on the UK Singles Chart.... "
|
"Run On"
|
| "Bodyrock Bodyrock "Bodyrock" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, released as the third single from his 1999 studio album Play. The single peaked at number 38 on the UK Singles Chart... "
|
| "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?" is a song by American electronica musician Moby released as the fourth single from his 1999 album Play.The song managed to chart at number 16 on the UK Singles Chart... "
|
| "Natural Blues Natural Blues "Natural Blues" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, released as the fifth single from his 1999 studio album Play. It samples "Trouble So Hard" by American folk singer Vera Hall. It was first released in the UK, where it peaked at number eleven.... "
|
| "Porcelain Porcelain (song) "Porcelain" is a song by American electronica musician Moby, featured as the third track and released as the sixth single from his album Play. It was released on June 12, 2000 in the UK, and reached number 5 in the UK charts, Moby's highest chart position there to date. The U.S... "
|
| "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?" / "Honey" (remix featuring Kelis Kelis Kelis Rogers Kelis Rogers Kelis Rogers (born August 21, 1971 is an American musical artist. She is a BRIT Award, Q Award and NME Award winner and has been nominated for two Grammy Awards. She has had nine top 10 singles on the UK Singles Chart... )
|
| "South Side South Side (song) "South Side" is the title of a song written and recorded by American electronica musician Moby. It was released in November 2000 as the eighth single from his 1999 studio album Play... "
|
| "Find My Baby Find My Baby "Find My Baby" is a song by American electronica musician Moby released as the ninth and final single from his 1999 studio album Play. It features samples from the song "Joe Lee's Rock" by Boy Blue.- Track listing :# "Find My Baby" – 3:59... "
|