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.
From Colossal Flop to Largest Selling Electonica Album of All Time
In 1999, Moby’s follow-up record, Play was a colossal flop, initially. It peaked at number 33 on the charts and sold a measly 6,000 copies in its first week in the UK. By 2001, the album was now moving 150,000 copies a week and would 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 the decade with Rolling Stone magazine adding it to their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Moby became a techno wunderkind with his third record in 1995, Everything Is Wrong. People eagerly awaited his follow-up album, Animal Rights which was a gut punch to his fans.
“We found ourselves struggling for even the slightest bit of recognition.” – Moby
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 remembered how the public seemed to write Moby off as a one-hit-wonder, “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 poor sales and critical reception, Moby promoted Animal Rights with a European tour, opening for both the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Soundgarden. Moby, at one point, considered quitting the music industry altogether and becoming an architect.
“I got a phone call from Axl Rose saying he was listening to Animal Rights on repeat.” – Moby
It was Moby’s peers in the music industry who convinced him to carry on as he told 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.”
In an interview, Moby said the following:
“How did you feel about getting props from Axl Rose on Animal Rights?”
“It was really odd. So, Axl Rose told me he really loved that album and Joe Strummer told me that he loved it… I remember one piece of fan mail that I got for Animal Rights and it was from Terence Trent D’Arby.”
“Wow!”
“And it was a handwritten letter from Terrance Trent D’Arby on Terrance Trent D’Arby official stationery, which is vaguely purple and just saying like how much he appreciated that I 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.”
Every Song on the Album Play Gets Licensed
Following Animal Rights, Moby released his follow-up record in 1999, 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. 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 carmakers, home appliance makers, coffin polishers and electric dog grooming equipment rental companies. This resulted in several good things for Moby including large sums of money coming his way, him getting more exposure and his album Play moving up the charts.
“God Moving Over The Face of The Waters”
The brains behind the whole operation were Moby’s management team, Marci Weber and Barry Taylor. The groundwork was laid long before Play came out when one of his songs 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.
The management team kicked things off by throwing a free listening party at the Slamdance Film Festival and they soon started taking meetings with indie film studios and other businesses that record labels and publishers had previously glossed over or ignored.
Marketing Strategy Pays Off
Their strategy soon started to pay off as companies one by one started lining up to license music from Play, including Nordstrom, Bailey’s Irish Cream, and Volkswagen licensing the track “Porcelain”, while American Express licensed “Find My Baby”. The list would go on and 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 of the songs on the album 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 or their artists have to worry about the chart position of their albums, as now there was another route to recoup their costs and make money.
“One of the songs was licensed for an Australian student film by some guy in college in Sydney.” – Moby
Moby was quickly branded a sell-out 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.”
Moby would contend that he had almost no input on how his music was used in ads, but he did have a moral compass claiming he would never allow tobacco companies or fast food chains to use his music.
“… Every musician who is involved in the commercial exploitation of music is ostensibly a sellout.” – Moby
Regarding the sellout accusation, he would claim there’s no such thing as selling out, “In the early ‘80s, I played in a hardcore punk band, and the term ‘sellout’ was tossed around quite a lot. 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.”
Looking back, Moby claims that he would license his music from Play all over again, claiming that money was never the motivating factor, but rather how he would get his music to the masses.
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