Hotel

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
Once a roving maverick who skipped from euphoric rave to speed-metal to ambient soundscaping as if just to prove he could, recent years have seen Richard Melville Hall relax into a comfortable – and yes, lucrative – niche. On the surface, Hotel follows a similarly laid-back trajectory to his last two albums, Play and 18: a collection of melancholic torch-songs indebted to electro-pop, gospel, and David Bowie's "Heroes", it's typified by the rousing, keyboard-drenched likes of "Beautiful" and the twinkling, optimistic "Spiders". But that's not to say Moby is stagnating, exactly: for one, he's bravely jettisoned the vocal samples that powered the likes of "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?", relying instead on his own understated, faintly awestruck vocals – and, indeed, those of guest vocalist Laura Brown, whose sparse, synth-and-drum-machine cover of New Order's "Temptation" is a low-key highlight. But there's also a return to his raving roots on the pulsing, diva-led "Very", and a touch of politics on "Lift Me Up" – a song that hides its contempt for the Bush Administration amid a dark carnival of sweeping strings and disco-noir rhythms. --Louis Pattison

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Customer reviews

review by: sara jane date: 2008-11-28 rating:
easy listening
i like this cd. i bought it specifically for a couple of tracks, but i was surprised how much i like all of the tracks, a mixture of easy listening and mysterious music that encourages your imagination to kick in ! i like it, i recommend this cd.

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review by: date: 2008-08-28 rating:
a little too "safe" for die-hard Moby fans
For lovers of older Moby, those album obviously comes as a shock - the songs don't have quite the same Moby feel to them. Nevertheless, I absolutely love this album. Admittedly, it's taken a bit of getting used to (mostly due to my stubborn refusal to listen to it now that Lift Me Up has become so popular) but once you really sit down and listen to it, the musical genius that is Moby really shines through. The only tracks that don't really agree with me are Lift Me Up (predominantly due to its popularity!) and Beautiful, most likely because they sound too "mainstream" and I prefer more quirky, alternative sounds. My absolute favourites would be I Like It (bit sexy), Slipping Away and Forever. These three really are beautifully handcrafted songs, which is why I love them so much.

I especially liked the note Moby wrote inside the sleeve, explaining the title. Another reason to love this band, they show such intelligence, which doesn't really seem to be so prominent in up-and-coming bands anymore.

On the whole, a fantastic album. Perhaps not one for die-hard Moby fans, but if you just coax it out of its shell, you'll wonder why you were ever there in the first place.

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review by: Al-Uk :-) date: 2008-05-12 rating:
Brilliant. Almost as good as Play
OK, I didn't like "18! at all. Compared to the changing moods of Play I found it rather depressing and monotonous. Therefore, I went in to Hotel with some trepidation. I needn't have worried though as this album is ALMOST as good as Play. It changes moods throughout the record and works as a whole remarkably well. If you liked Play GET THIS.

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review by: date: 2007-06-30 rating:
He just doesn't stop does he?
For some Moby is a dirty word. Up there with Dido in the bland stakes - though you'd have to be a goth with ears of cloth to think that. Judge not a man by the company he keeps in a suburban record collection, but by the quality of his work.

"Hotel" then, Moby's umpteenth album (some people say it's his fifth, but I can think of seventeen in his careeer), is both more of the same, and more than that. You know what he sounds like, dance music for people who don't dance, and yet, with this one, he's branching back into the more eclectic territory he shyed from on both "Play" and "18" : the formula of old blues samples and guest vocalists have been retired, in favour of one man, an arsenal of bedroom geekery, and a vision.

Last time he did this, his vision was "Animal Rights", a heartbroken thrash classic that sold all of 43 copies. This time, "Hotel" will fly off the supermarket shelves on the back of his stadium-blues classic "Play", and it's no lesser a record than any of his recent work. In many ways it's better.

"Hotel" mines the same furrow of melancholic dance music, shorn of the fancy tricks of the previous records. Musically, occasionally the vision is smaller, more intimate than before, yet also harder, more urgent : the epic gestures of the last two records are downscaled in favour of a quieter, more personal approach. As such, one gets the feeling that is more Moby than most of his other, more impersonal material.

Despite himself, Moby can't help write the big hooks : "Beautiful", "Lift Me Up", and "Raining Again" are songs that, in the hands of Noel Gallagher would be stadium singalongs. Here, they're lullabies for bedrooms : sad yet happy, uplifting yet never optmistic. Simple, yet complex, and proof that clever need not be complicated. And like all of Moby's vocal work, it hangs on an air of hopeful melancholy, the intelligent hope that despite the wars between people and nations, that human nature - innate human goodness will prevail.

As he says on the sleeve, the album is called "Hotel" for a number of reasons, because all things are temporary, this life, love, the rooms we rent by the night or by the year, all of these things are both permanent and passing. Like any great artist, Moby evolves, yet never beyond the recognisable : if you liked "Play" or "18", you'll love this. If you think he's techno blues-raping geek baldy Anti-Christ, welcome to Wrongsville : Population You.

"Hotel" is neither Moby's best nor worst album, but another consistent album made by a genuine talent. I get the feeling that even if Moby didn't have a deal anymore and was working for a living, he'd be sat in his bedroom making these songs, simply because he has to : because that's who he is.

What greater artist is there than one who creates art because he needs to, not because he does it get laid and get paid? Yes, you, Joss Stone, Jamie Callum, and countless self-aggrandising rappers, I'm talking to you. Shut up with your aural graffiti and let the talent speak.



review by: date: 2006-12-08 rating:
More of the same please Moby
This is what Moby should be doing more of!!! Some great songs, with Moby taking a stand forward and singing most of the songs by himself, and not the usual 2 or 3 he has done in previous albums!

He has a better voice than what most people credit him for and this album shows his real tallents as a singer-songwritter.

"Lift me up" a great song, but the David Bowie influenced "Spiders" is the stand out track IMO.

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