Everything Was Beautiful And Nothing Hurt - Moby (2018)

I suspect it’s easy to get annoyed with Moby if you’re not a big fan. He just kind of does whatever he wants, does some of those things transcendently well, and others enthusiastically and unapologetically half-assed. I wouldn’t know. His Move EP was one of the first purchases that got me into electronic music, partly because it also had a couple of guitar-heavy tracks that helped me place the music in contrast to what I was already listening to. His breakout album from a few years later, Play, is an all-time favorite (although apparently I didn’t think about it when I got to a favorite album that starts with “P”). Those 90s albums rearranged my brain multiple times.

This one has a lot of 90s Moby tradmarks: smooth synth lines, sometimes with overpowering bass; piano arpeggios; plaintive lyrics; and great atmospherics. But he adds more modern drum programming and a 21st century sense of construction.

Several tracks are named after lines from Yeats’ poem The Second Coming, and the lyrics are generally wistful and melancholy.

So really, it’s tailor-made for me to love.