What’s going on my fellow rock n’ rollers. Don’t forget to hit the bell notification
icon to be notified every time I put out a new video on my channel. Prior to the Millenium
musician Moby was down on himself. He thought of himself as a failure and It maybe hard
for some to believe, but he was on a commercial and critical losing streak for half a decade
starting in 1996, but by 2001 he was back on top.
Moby’s fourth album 1996’s Animal Rights was a commercial and critical flop. Up until
this point in moby’s career he had built his reputation on electronic music. Animal
rights found him diving into punk rock and more guitar driven songs and some called Moby
a sell out while others saw this move as a way for Moby to pay homage to his 80’s punk
rock roots.
In 1999 his follow up record Play would be released and it would be a colossal flop initially.
It would only initially peak at number 33 on the charts and sold a measly 6,000 copies
in the first week in the UK. But by 2001 the album was now moving 150,000 copies a week
and that was just in the UK and go on to sell 12 million copies worldwide making it the
largest selling electronica album of all time. Play would go on to be hailed as one of the
greatest albums of decade with Rolling Stone magazine going as so far as placing the album
on it’s list of 500 greatest albums of all time. So what changed. How did this happen?
Stay tuned to find out.
Moby became a techno wunderkind with his 1995 third record, Everything Is Wrong. People
eagerly awaited his follow up album 1996’s Animal RIghts which was a gut punch to his
fans. Moby grew tired of electronic music and was disappointed with critics not taking
his music more seriously and the end result was Animal Rights. Moby’s manager would
remember how the public seemed to write off Moby as a one hit wonder remembering: "We
found ourselves struggling for even the slightest bit of recognition. He became a has-been in
the eyes of a lot of people in the industry".Despite the poor sales and critical reaction, Moby
promoted Animal Rightswith a European tour opening for both the Red Hot Chili Peppers
and Soundgarden. Moby at one point considered quitting the music industry all together and
becoming an architect but it would be his peers in the music industry who convinced
him to carry on as he would tell an interviewer: "I was opening for Soundgarden and getting
shit thrown at me every night onstage. I did my own tour and was playing to roughly fifty
people a night.", " I got a phone call from Axl Rose saying he was listening to Animal
Rights on repeat. Bono told me he loved Animal Rights. So if you're gonna have pieces of
fan mail, that's the fan mail to get."[5]
How did you feel about getting propos from Axl Rose on Animal Rights. IT was really odd.
So I Got Axl Rose told me he really loved that album and Joe Strummer told me that he
loved it. And I got. And this is the funniest thing .I Got a piece of fan mail I remember
once piece of fan mail that I got for Animal Rights and it was from Terence Trent D'Arby.
Wow and it was a hand written letter from Terrance Trent D’Arby official stationery
which is vaguely purple and just saying how much he appreciated that had made this record
and I never met Terrance Trent D'Arby but so even though the record sold terribly and
critically maligned. Oh Bono really liked it. So Bono, Joe Strummer Axl Rose and Terence
Trent D’Arby all seemed to like that record. So I don’t know what’s more random the
fact that you got a handwritten note from Terence or that you know Axl Rose.
Following Animal Rights Moby would release his follow up record 1999’s Play, which
harkened back to his earlier sound.
Play was the first in history to have every song licensed to advertisers, TV shows, and
movies. Thankfully for Moby his electronic music with ambient soundscapes and minimalistic
or vague lyrics could take on a variety of meanings,,which meant it was the perfect fit
for both advertisers and Hollywood. Moby and his management team were able to successfully
license and re-license the same tracks over and over again to a variety of buyers including
low to high end car makers, home appliance makers and even, coffin polishers and electric
dog grooming equipment rental companies. At the end of the day this resulted in several
good things for Moby including large sums of money coming Moby’s way, him getting
more exposure and his album Play moving up the charts.
The brains behind the whole operation was Moby’s management team who was made up of
a pair of people named Marci Weber and Barry Taylor. The groundwork was laid long before
Play came out when one of his song’s named God Moving Over The face of The Waters’
was licensed for the 1995 film Heat where it was used in the climax of the movie. The
song resonated well with hollywood’s music departments so his management team already
had connections with the movie industry.
Up until this point in time Radio was largely ignoring Moby as he had alienated a lot of
his longtime fans with animal rights so his management team needed to come up an idea
that bypassed FM radio. The pair kicked things off by throwing a free listening party at
the Slamdance Film Festival and Moby’s management team soon started taking meetings with indie
film studios and other businesses that record labels and publishers had previously glossed
over or ignored. Their strategy soon started to pay off as companies one by one started
lining up to license music from Play with clothing store Nordstrom Bailey's Irish Cream
as well as Volkswagon licensing the track "Porcelain"., while American Express licensed
"Find My Baby". And The list would go on and on as Moby was soon showing artists how to
make money in a future where record sales were dwindling.. The strategy lied in owning
your own songs and publishing and licensing out your music.
Within a year of Play coming out all 18 of the album’s tracks were licensed in some
official way with the final unlicensed track titled “7” finding a buyer in a British
indie production company. Following the massive success of Play record labels and their marketing
people would start listening closer to their artists albums and determining which songs
could be licensed to Hollywood or advertisers. No longer did record labels and their artists
have to worry about just the chart position of their albums, as now there was another
route to recoup their costs and make money. .
It isn't long before a declining industry started to develop a saviour complex about
music licensing. Moby for his part was quickly branded a sell
out by some for licensing his music to every type of medium but he would respond to Americansongwriter.com
saying “It’s a misleading truth,” “Yes, every song was licensed, but some of the songs
were licensed to tiny independent film productions that never were seen by anyone. One of the
songs was licensed for an Australian student film by some guy in college in Sydney.”
And Moby would contend that he had almost no input on how his music was used in ads
, but he did have some moral compass claiming he would never allow tobacco companies or
fast food chains like McDonalds or burger king to use his music possibly him being a
vegan had something to do with that. . Regarding the sellout accusation he would
claim there’s no such thing as selling out as he points to jaded schoolboys, hipster
douches and holier than though punks saying in the same interview “In the early ‘80s,
I played in a hardcore punk band, and the term ‘sellout’ was tossed around quite
a lot,” he notes. “There were some really hardcore anarchist punks who believed that
if you charged money for a show, you were a sellout. And there were people who believed
that if you made a seven-inch record, you were a sellout. Basically, every musician
who is involved in the commercial exploitation of music is ostensibly a sellout. I eventually
realized how absurd that was.” he’d say Looking back Moby claims he would license
his music from Play all over again, claiming money was never the motivating factor, but
rather how he would get his music to the masses. So let me know your thoughts in the comments
section below. Personally I forgot as a kid just how many videos games and movies i came
across in my you that had moby’s music including fifa 2001, gone in 60 seconds and test drive
which come to mind. That does it for today’s video thanks for watching be sure t hit the
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