Trivia / Moby

• Artist Disillusionment: Part of what inspired Moby to shift from rave music to punk rock with Animal Rights was his distaste in where rave music and culture were headed by the mid-1990s. In 1990, he played upbeat R&B and jungle beats to joyful, free-spirited, multicultural youths dancing in celebration; by 1996, the popular music had shifted to gloomy industrial, and most of his sets were for white, middle-class junkies slumped against the walls of night clubs because they were too high to dance.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: When "Go" was was getting big in England, DJs weren't aware that "Go" was the name of the song and not the second word of the artist's name, resulting in several promoters introducing/billing him as "Moby Go."
• Creator Backlash:
  • In various interviews, Moby has stated that Hotel is his least favorite work of his discography.
    "I like some of the songs, but I produce it in such a generic way, that I was really kinda disappointed with myself as a producer and as a musician."
  • His first self-titled album got this treatment as well; it was rushed to release without Moby's knowledge, and mostly consisted of old work. He refused to acknowledge it for a while, but since then he's lightened up and sometimes still plays tracks from it live.
• Creator Breakdown: Just before Everything Is Wrong was released and after the last in a string of failed relationships, Moby gave into alcoholism. After Animal Rights flopped, he became an outright hard-drinking party guy, having anywhere between seven and fifteen drinks a night and sleeping with any woman who'd say yes. In the midst of that, his mother died from lung cancer, which took an even greater emotional toll on him, all while his professional career crumbled around him. Even after Play saved his career, his out-of-control lifestyle persisted until 2008, when he became sober again.
• Doing It for the Art: He currently lives a very modest lifestyle, recording all of his music in his house, rarely touring and donating most of the profits he makes from his music to various charities he supports. Long Ambients 1 was created entirely for his own listening before he made it available to download and stream at absolutely no cost.
• Magnum Opus Dissonance:
  • As mentioned above, he doesn't care much for his first album, but many critics going backwards through his discography have called it his best.
  • On the reverse of this, he seems to have no qualms whatsoever about Animal Rights. In an installment of Noisey's Rank Your Records feature, he even went as far as naming it his personal favorite out of all of his albums. Even when talking about how much the album's failure ruined his life in his memoir, he never says anything negative about the music itself.
• One-Hit Wonder: While having many hits overseas, "Southside" was the only track of his to ever chart in the US.
• Referenced by...: The final section of Canadian figure skater Iliya Kovler's long program from the 2018-2019 competitive season is set to Moby's "James Bond Theme."
• Sleeper Hit: Coming off of the massive flop of Animal Rights and dealing with personal issues, Moby assumed that Play was going to be his Swan Song. Instead, it became the first pop album ever to have every single track licensed for use in other media and propelled him to a superstar status, enough that famous rappers were name-dropping him (albeit to make fun of him) a few years later.
• What Could Have Been: Had Play not been successful, Moby would have quit music altogether and become a college professor.

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