Kelefa Sanneh munches Moby's gonads

'The focus here is on Moby as a singer and songwriter, which is strange, because he is not very good at either job. In his effort to leave generic constraints behind, he has drifted toward some rather neutral variant of alternative-rock. In the lyrics, as in the liner notes, he seems to mistake obviousness for truth: the lead single is a mind-numbing song called, "Beautiful," where the romantic dialogue consists largely of couplets like, "I love you baby/I love you now/I love you baby/I love you now." This music isn't just dull, though. Like much of what Moby has produced since "Play," it's condescending, too. Much of it sounds like the work of a producer who thinks pop music is supposed to be kind of idiotic, and who thinks pop audiences should be glad that he deigns to give us what we want. Do we like sex? O.K., here's "I Like It," four singularly unpleasant minutes of heavy breathing. Do we like songs about how the world is happy and sad and good and bad? O.K., here's "Slipping Away," with a wispy beat and Moby crooning, "Open to everything, happy and sad/Seeing the good when it's all going . . ." - you can finish the couplets yourself. Maybe this isn't really Moby's fault so much as it is ours. Like so many other things in the late 1990's, his new paradigm seemed like a great idea: car commercials were going to be the new pop songs and laptop composers were going to be the new pop stars. But it turns out that we really do like those oversized personalities who clog the radio stations - some of whom even double as superior engineers. Mr. Fukuyama, in his famous obituary of history, might have written that "boredom at the end of music will serve to get music started once again." That's an appealing idea, but it's also appealing to know, listening to "Hotel," that it won't be necessary. The end of music seems to have ended itself.' Complete castration here.