About Broadcast Music, Inc.

BMI collects license fees on behalf of songwriters, composers and music publishers and distributes them as royalties to those members whose works have been performed.

Join BMI

Get paid when your music gets played.

I am a…

Get a BMI License

Enter your business type below.

Examples: Bars & Restaurants, Retail, Local Government Entities (LGE), Venue, TV, Radio

New Media

Examples: Website, Mobile

Close Broadcast Music, Inc. collects license fees from businesses that use music, which it distributes as royalties to songwriters, composers & music publishers.
 

March 31, 2000

MusicWorld, Dance, Pop, Musicworld, Hitmaker

Moby

Photo

"My allegiance to a genre," Moby recently told GQ," is only so far as it allows great music to be made."

Indeed, the most consistent element of the multifarious DJ/songwriter/producer/remixer's eclectic recording career is his refusal to be pigeonholed by a single musical style or recording approach. Originally one of the leading exponents of the techno/dance movement, the New York-based artist transcended that genre's formal restrictions early in his career, and has since built an impressive body of work encompassing a broad array of influences.

Moby - born Richard Melville Hall, and nicknamed in honor of his status as a direct descendant of "Moby-Dick" author Herman Melville - delivers his most adventurous effort to date with his fifth album, Play, which seamlessly melds the artist's restless experimentalism with his knack for accessible verse/chorus songwriting.

Several of Play's most startling tracks are built around ancient field recordings of African-American folk music made by legendary folklorists John and Alan Lomax. "When I first heard these recordings, I was so moved by them," Moby says of the decades-old performances that inspired him. "These vocals became the starting points for the album."

Elsewhere on Play, Moby - who wrote and plays all of the instruments on the album - himself sings on more traditionally accessible melodic compositions, as well as delivering some reflective, atmospheric instrumentals.

As he recently told the Los Angeles Times, "I recognize that by a lot of people's standards, I make sort of eclectic, sort of experimental records, but I never tried to. This might sound like a very cliched thing to say, but my goal has always been to make records that I love. If in the process, I make records that sell, that's fine. But if in the process, I make records that don't sell, that's fine too."

Written by Martin Huxley

In this story: Moby


Most Recent