Moby: The Unlikely Success Of 'Play' & Why Axl Rose & Bono Convinced Moby To Not Quit

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In today's video we take a look at the time Moby turned around his 1999 record Play, which was initially deemed a failure due to its lacklustre commercial performance.

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Prior to the Millenium musician Moby was down on himself. He thought of himself as a failure and It maybe hard for some to believe, but he was on a commercial and critical losing streak for half a decade starting in 1996, but by 2001 he was back on top.

Moby’s fourth album 1996’s Animal Rights was a commercial and critical flop. Up until this point in moby’s career he had built his reputation on electronic music. Animal rights found him diving into punk rock and more guitar driven songs and some called Moby a sell out while others saw this move as a way for Moby to pay homage to his 80’s punk rock roots.

In 1999 his follow up record Play would be released and it would be a colossal flop initially. It would only initially peak at number 33 on the charts and sold a measly 6,000 copies in the first week in the UK. But by 2001 the album was now moving 150,000 copies a week and that was just in the UK and go on to sell 12 million copies worldwide making it the largest selling electronica album of all time. Play would go on to be hailed as one of the greatest albums of decade with Rolling Stone magazine going as so far as placing the album on it’s list of 500 greatest albums of all time. So what changed. How did this happen? Stay tuned to find out.

Moby became a techno wunderkind with his 1995 third record, Everything Is Wrong. People eagerly awaited his follow up album 1996’s Animal RIghts which was a gut punch to his fans. Moby grew tired of electronic music and was disappointed with critics not taking his music more seriously and the end result was Animal Rights. Moby’s manager would remember how the public seemed to write off Moby as a one hit wonder remembering: "We found ourselves struggling for even the slightest bit of recognition. He became a has-been in the eyes of a lot of people in the industry".Despite the poor sales and critical reaction, Moby promoted Animal Rightswith a European tour opening for both the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Soundgarden. Moby at one point considered quitting the music industry all together and becoming an architect but it would be his peers in the music industry who convinced him to carry on as he would tell an interviewer: "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.", " 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 pieces of fan mail, that's the fan mail to get."[5]

How did you feel about getting propos from Axl Rose on Animal Rights. IT was really odd. So I Got Axl Rose told me he really loved that album and Joe Strummer told me that he loved it. And I got. And this is the funniest thing .I Got a piece of fan mail I remember once piece of fan mail that I got for Animal Rights and it was from Terence Trent D'Arby. Wow and it was a hand written letter from Terrance Trent D’Arby official stationery which is vaguely purple and just saying how much he appreciated that had made this record and I never met Terrance Trent D'Arby but so even though the record sold terribly and critically maligned. Oh Bono really liked it. So Bono, Joe Strummer Axl Rose and Terence Trent D’Arby all seemed to like that record. So I don’t know what’s more random the fact that you got a handwritten note from Terence or that you know Axl Rose.

Following Animal Rights Moby would release his follow up record 1999’s Play, which harkened back to his earlier sound.

Play was the first in history to have every song licensed to advertisers, TV shows, and movies. Thankfully for Moby his electronic music with ambient soundscapes and minimalistic or vague lyrics could take on a variety of meanings,,which meant it was the perfect fit for both advertisers and Hollywood. Moby and his management team were able to successfully license and re-license the same tracks over and over again to a variety of buyers including low to high end car makers, home appliance makers and even, coffin polishers and electric dog grooming equipment rental companies. At the end of the day this resulted in several good things for Moby including large sums of money coming Moby’s way, him getting more exposure and his album Play moving up the charts.

Видео Moby: The Unlikely Success Of 'Play' & Why Axl Rose & Bono Convinced Moby To Not Quit канала Rock N' Roll True Stories