Since the noted success of 1999’s Play, Moby has been a slowly withering figure in the electronica world. Nothing since has quite lived up to the album’s commercial success. 18 saw minimal success. Hotel was a flop, and a sharp turn away from the genre. Now, three years later, Moby is back, and sticking to his techno roots.
Always blunt in his artistic endeavours, Moby explicitly states Last Night’s purpose in the liner notes. This time it’s a night on the town, the New York City club scene of days gone by: eight hours and 25 years crunched into just over an hour of not-so-up to par ambient dance tracks. It’s an admittedly daunting task, but the end result is a lackluster attempt to blend the past and present (something Moby used to be good at).
The album kicks off with Ooh Yeah and a melancholic sense of Club 57 glamour, the sound of disco delights fading into cocaine regrets. It’s Funky Town without the funk, and the blasé energy only gets worse from here. Synth pads abound on the album, as expected. This is the soundtrack to buying trendy sweaters. The ambient soundscapes are lush, but often disjointed. What’s with the contrived old school rap on I Love to Move in Here? The limp, uninspired vocals on Live for Tomorrow?
Last Night also tends to get bogged down by cliché, as Moby far too often forgets to bridge the present, and gets lost in the past. Disco Lies is a welcome boost of energy, and singer Shayna Steele makes up for the previous vocalists’ shortcomings (If Moby was smart, he would have used her on all the tracks.), but it sounds like it’s pulled straight off of Jock Jams. By the end of it, I’m mostly just daydreaming about Ace of Base. The Stars too, though one of the album’s most purposeful tracks, presents nothing new musically.
Everyday it’s 1989 is another backwards looking mash-up, though it’s more obnoxious than nostalgic, with an anonymous soul songstress wailing incessantly over some hardcore house beats. I literally found it hard to listen through to the end. (Be grateful. I stuck it out for your sake.)
By the time I make it to the supposed hit song Alice, deeply embedded at track six, my hopes are high, and a little damaged from the past 20 minutes of blasé electronica. The vibe is dark and sexy and weird and everything Moby claims in his little booklet dissertation. Distorted guitar riffs blare out as the bass slowly grows louder and louder. It’s all climbing to a penultimate moment, like a smoldering club scene, where everyone’s waiting to get theirs. But this is not like the dance tracks of Moby’s past – let’s get this very clear. The new stuff sounds more fit for a long car ride than a long night out. All that build-up and it ends where it started. Such a shame. Moby blew his big chance.
The album ends with sparse, mostly vocal-free tracks. This is the wind-down after an excursion through the New York night – pretty unnecessary seeing as things never got that heated up to begin with. Singer Sylvia Gordon swoons on the final track Last Night. This is goodbye, recognition of change: “a beautiful scene in decay/there to remind us that nothing stays the same.” Sadly, the only decaying scene here is Moby himself. And the track is nine minutes long. Seriously man, let it go.
The final result is paradoxical: an album that conveys the dead side of a vibrant scene. I miss the strut-your-stuff appeal of Honey and Bodyrock, the intensity of Drop a Beat, the depth of Go. Where’s the energy? This is the New York club scene? I think not. The album sounds more fit for the front lounge of an early retirement home. Okay… that’s a stretch, but I’m trying to make a point here. I could fall asleep to some of these tracks – and I have never been able to fall asleep in a club.
