Thought Sausage

Okay so Ryan wanted my opinion of this album..so I obtained it, and gave it a few listens.

Lemme preface this by sayin sometimes Moby ends up being a guilty pleasure of mine. Sure he's a tone deaf little weiner and a bit of a pompous ass, but the dude did manage to make some interesting tunes and his live show is pretty damn cool. I'm not a huge dance album fan in the first place (in the 909-loop-in-4/4-and-play-at-bass-makes-eyeballs-bleed-levels sense) and I think trance is the single most retarded form of music (since when is 'oh you gotta be on drugs to 'get it'' an excuse for anything?). I know enough about how this music is constructed to know what is the product of a couple cheesy 303/505/808 loops sequenced and what is actual talent (see any Micronaut album).

So this brings us to Moby's album Last Night. It falls into the latter category of phoned in some places and in other places he's doing good shit. Unfortunately, I'd have to say a lot of it really has that "made on a laptop" vibe that Year Zero had in parts (Schmudde's biggest Moby complaint).

Apparently, the stated goal is to 'recreate a night out on the town in Moby's neighborhood' or some shit. From the sound of it, Moby frequents a lot of gay clubs and yuppie new-age restaurants. No guitar work at all (which, I'm actually into with Moby).

Some of the non-dancy interludes are interesting...nothing that's gonna win over the glow stick crowd, but it makes for nice background music at work.

Some shit sounds like it's straight off a Jennifer Lopez album or some pop bullshit (I'm given to understand Moby did work on the Britney Spears album, so there ya go). The lead track 'Ooh Yeah' and that dumbass pitch corrector effect makes me want to jam a pencil in my ear. But in all honesty, that's the only song that yeilds a 'pencil-in-ear' reaction. Some of the female vox are quite good...in fact possibly some of the best he's ever had on an album. They sound like original samples and none of that "Go" shit.

Worth the price of admission? I'd say so. But I certainly have tracks I'll listen to, and ones I simply won't. Maybe it's me getting older, maybe its the fact I already live in the West Loop of Chicago, but listening to this makes me feel like the biggest metro-sexual in the office, and that don't jive ya know what I mean?

If your electronic/dance/ambient budget is stretched and you have to decide between Last Night or Callisto...jesus fucking christ get Callisto. Much more bang for the buck.

I guess I can't complain. I do think this album may signify me officially getting the Moby thing out of my system though. I did go ahead and snag that Joy Division cover he did of New Dawn Fades and boy howdy is that ever fuckin' cool. How the hell did I miss that?