Moby – Last Night – Not Quite Close To Play But Way Better Than 18 Hotel

I really love “Play”.  Oh yes, I do.  Perhaps it’s because of the disco clubs by the beach of Grand Bay, Mauritius, that my project team often frequented (oh sweet days of Banana Café), and at that time, Moby’s “Play” was hot.  It was the sunset, the sea breeze, the sand, the resort, and the laid-back-good-old-days-post-modernization of an island nation off the coast of the African continent that gave me the illusion that I was dancing in the year of not 1999, but one or two decades prior to that.

Moby’s ambient electronic music blends well in such a dreamy land of nowhere, a tourist paradise.  How I miss Mauritius.

My sentimental bias aside, I think Moby fans would agree with me that “Natural Blues” from the “Play” (1999) album is probably one of tracks that made Moby known to the International mainstream music scene.  The chorus of “Oooh, Lordy, troubles so hard and Don’t nobody know my troubles but God” just sticks to our heads.

The subsequent album releases “18” (which I owned) and “Hotel” (which I got wiser and decided not to own) were major disappointments to me.  In “Last Night”, Moby took a slightly different approach.  Most of the vocal tracks are sung by talented unknown artists, in which Moby mentioned that they are much easier to work with without the complication of legal issues and big record companies’ involvement.  It works.  Though it is not quite close to “Play”, “Last Night” is a pleasant album to listen to.  Less experimental in nature, Moby returns to his disco dance music root and enriches each track with his distinctive electronic ambience touch.

I personally don’t think Moby is particularly strong in his lyrics department.  But who cares about lyrics when you are half drunk on the dance floor or about to collapse onto the couch?  So I have no qualm that the CD does not come with a set of lyrics; and they should as some of the lines even the Internet community cannot make out.  Inside the killer track “Alice”, the word “Jodice” keeps repeating and Cynthia and I one time looked at each other in the car and said, “Who is Jodice?”  Or “What is joh this?”  OK.  From what I researched in the net, the phrase in question could be “do this”.  Then again, you will never know.

Why does the song titled “Alice” anyway when it doesn’t even get mentioned in the song?  Perhaps it is a reference to “Alice in Wonderland”?  Perhaps it has something to do with the lyrics “Can you become girl here in the fun world?”

Anyway, who cares?

If you have nothing against rap singing style, the first single “Alice” will please you much.  The majority tracks of “Last Night” are loaded with up tempo music while the last few tracks substantially darken the mood and the album is concluded with the title song “Last Night”, a ballad.  That last song does remind me of the closing hour of the dance floor when the DJ usually plays a slow song to wrap up the evening or early morning.  How appropriate.

Featured below is the video clip of “Alice”.  Don’t expect the image to reflect the current decade.  It is Moby baby.  Let’s head back to the disco days with us having bad hairstyles doing crazy things; things that you don’t even want to recall.  Admit it!