Moby
By All Music Guide
By All Music Guide
Born Richard Melville Hall, Moby received his nickname as a child; it derives from the fact that %Herman Melville, the author of -Moby Dick, is his great-great grand uncle. Moby was born and raised in Darien, CT, where he played in a hardcore punk band called the Vatican Commandos as a teenager. Later, he briefly sang with Flipper, while their singer was serving time in jail. He briefly attended college, before he moved to New York City, where he began DJing in dance clubs. During the late 80s and 1990, he released a number of singles and EPs for the independent label Instinct. In 1991, he set the theme from David Lynchs television series #Twin Peaks to an insistent, house-derived rhythm and titled the result Go. The single became a surprise British hit single, climbing into the Top Ten. Following its success, Moby was invited to remix a number of mainstream and underground acts, including Michael Jackson, Pet Shop Boys, Brian Eno, Depeche Mode, Erasure, the B-52s, and Orbital.
Moby continued performing at dances and raves throughout 1991 and 1992, culminating in a set at 1992s ~Mixmag awards where he broke his keyboards at the end of his concert. Moby, his first full-length album, appeared in 1992. In 1993, he released the double A-side single I Feel It / Thousand, which became a moderate U.K. hit. According to the -Guinness Book of Records, Thousand is the fastest single ever, appropriately clocking in at 1000 beats a minutes. That same year, Moby signed a record contract with Mute and his first release was Ambient, which compiled unissued material recorded between 1988 and 1991. Later that year, The Story So Far, a collection of singles released on Instinct, appeared. In 1994, the single Hymn -- one of the first fusions of gospel, echno and ambient music -- was released.
In 1994, Moby signed a major-label contract with Elektra Records in the U.S. Everything Is Wrong, his first album released under the deal, appeared in the spring of 1995 to uniformly excellent reviews, especially in the American press, who had previously ignored him. Despite the promotional push behind the album and his popular sets at the ~1995 Lollapalooza, the album wasnt a commercial success. The following year, Moby suddenly abandoned echno to record heavy guitar rock for Animal Rights, which received mixed reviews. A partial return to electronica, 1997s I Like to Score, was followed by 1999s Play. Surpassing everyones expectations, the album became a platinum hit and reached number one in the U.K., while Plays tracks were licensed by dozens of advertisers and compilers. Likewise, 2002s 18 and 2005s Hotel cemented Mobys popularity as a purveyor of electronica-pop.
