I’ve been waiting for Moby’s new album since Hotel came out over three years ago, and I finally got my wish today. So here’s my (somewhat haphazard) review of Moby’s Last Night:

It seems like every single anticipatory review of Last Night mentioned the fact that it’s “more dance-oriented” than Moby’s previous work. That Moby somehow found a “new voice” in this album. Honestly, I think that’s crap. I’d still call this an “electronic” album, with a heavier emphasis on the bass line, making it border on the Dance category. Actually, I think Last Night was more of a return to the almost obsessively alternative Moby from a decade ago. With heavily sampled vocals (which come close to seeming improvised), songs like “Everyday It’s 1989″ and “Live For Tomorrow” could have almost come off of his 2002 album 18 (see, “One of These Mornings” and “Sunday (The Day Before My Birthday)”).

Something that intrigued me about Last Night was it’s concept: Moby wanted to recreate the experience of a night in NYC - all the different events and emotions you can go through in 8 short hours. Part of this involved recreating the vast array of experiences, possible. However, Moby seems to have lost a bit of his commitment to the vividly varying melodies which made Hotel such a pleasure to listen to straight through, opting instead for the repetitive electronic drum beat which lost its appeal about fifteen minutes in. Even after listening to it all afternoon, I’m having trouble distinguishing the last 8 or 9 tracks - they simply sound too similar.

Admittedly, Last Night has some nice attributes, thanks to Moby’s unashamed loyalty to his somewhat unconventional musical style. Most pop artists use vocals as the center-piece of the song, whereas dance artists use their beats and stutters as the frontmen. But Moby has created a marriage of the two camps, in many ways using vocals as simply another instrument in his orchestra - a pleasing style, which unfortunately requires some getting used to. The distinguishable lyrics to “The Stars,” for example, consist simply of “I see the stars,” repeated several dozens times. If you’re looking for a sing-along track, you’ll find very few in Last Night.

Yet some of my favorite tracks were simply the ones that broke outside the boundaries of most music I hear on the radio. The simple yet beautiful melody of “Ooh Yeah,” the purely instrumental “Mothers of the Night” (which says more without words than most songs do with vocals), and even the powerful, angry, and hurt monologue from “Disco Lies” (I felt like I was in a gay club in 1982) were all memorable and can easily get stuck in your head.

All things considered, I was a little disappointed in Last Night. I became a bit too fond of signing along with 2005’s Hotel, and the beat-intensive dance album Moby’s created here just doesn’t lend itself to that style of rocking out. But, taken for what it is (a dance album on the slightly more innovative side of the spectrum), Moby has created another work of art for his genre. Just don’t be surprised if you find yourself reaching for that “skip track” button every once in a while to escape the slight monotony.

I was recently sent a clipping from the Fargo, North Dakota newspaper (The Forum) about a gay couple attending the Fargo South High School’s prom (that may be where my cousins go, actually…). Anyway, the couple - Jakob Paper and Steven Goering - got front page, headline coverage about the event, and while I applaud Fargo for being so open and accepting about this (at least in the media), I was kind of saddened by the whole story. It saddened me how posed the front page picture of the two holding hands was. It saddened me how the only gay couple open enough to go to prom together was exploited by the media, turning their senior prom into more of a public interest piece than a private one. It saddened me that this had to be front page news in the first place.

As a semi-active member of the independent media here in Charlottesville, I have mixed feelings about the entire issue. We see it in legal case after legal case: someone has to be exploited for progress to be made and change to happen. Why can’t we just let gay couples go to prom without making a big deal out of it? Within a decade or two, I honestly don’t think most [public] schools won’t have seen a gay couple at their prom. I also think this will happen whether or not we make such a big deal out of individual events such as this.

I will, however, applaud Jakob and Steven for taking this initiative in a mostly conservatives state. Plus, I really shouldn’t be criticizing The Forum for devoting half their front page to this story, when The Daily Progress just recently devoted and equal amount of headline space to a father and son jumping in a puddle…

InnerJoeJoe