Moby

Person / b. 1965 / United States

electronic musician Richard Melville Hall

electronic ambient downtempo techno electronica house pop rock ambient techno

Biography

Richard Melville Hall, known professionally as Moby, is an American musician, songwriter and animal rights activist. He has sold 20 million records worldwide. AllMusic considers him to be "among the most important dance music figures of the early 1990s, helping bring dance music to a mainstream audience both in the United States and the United Kingdom".

Source: Wikipedia -- text available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Image via Wikipedia -- Moby.

Elsewhere

Analysed songs (10)

Beautiful

Moby

A stripped-down electro-pop track built almost entirely from repeated phrases, this song stages a couple's declaration of…

romantic solidarity us-versus-them defiance surface vs. concealment

Bodyrock

Moby

A vocal sample looped into near-total repetition, "Bodyrock" barely qualifies as lyric writing at all — it's a chant built for a…

physicality over language collective release repetition as ecstasy

Everloving

Moby

"Everloving" is a wordless mood piece built from Moby's signature late-90s palette: soft analog pads, a simple repeating melodic…

devotion comfort stillness

Flower

Moby

This track isn't really a Moby lyric at all but a looped field-recording-style sample of an African American work/children's…

labor and repetition folk memory loss

Honey

Moby

Built almost entirely from a looped vocal sample lifted from old field-recording blues, this track treats lyrics as sound…

longing repetition as form sampling and folk memory

Natural Blues

Moby

Moby builds this track around a looped vocal sample of a field-recorded folk/blues lament, layering electronic production…

grief religious faith as refuge isolation of suffering

Porcelain

Moby

A hushed breakup meditation built from fragments rather than a full narrative, "Porcelain" uses the blur between sleep and…

dissolution of a relationship guilt and self-doubt the porousness of dreams and waking life

Run On

Moby

Moby reworks a traditional gospel/folk song (recorded by artists from Bill Landford to Johnny Cash under titles like "Run On for…

divine judgment hypocrisy and sin folk/gospel revivalism

South Side

Moby

This is Moby's spare, half-sung meditation built around a repeating road-trip refrain that cycles through the four points of the…

urban danger friendship and loyalty hope versus fear

Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?

Moby

A single unanswered question and one cryptic image, both looped without resolution, become the entire content of this track. It…

spiritual malaise unresolved grief repetition as meaning