Moby just published an interesting post at his blog, suggesting that none of today’s music compares to George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue:
this won’t make sense to some of the people who are reading this, but i just finished listening to ‘rhapsody in blue’ from start to finish and i’m convinced it’s the best thing ever written and recorded in the history of things written and recorded.
i bought my first vinyl copy of ‘rhapsody in blue’ when i was 13, and i’ve never gone for a month without listening to it.
our generation most likely won’t leave much of a cultural stamp, and that’s heartbreaking. not to sound like a cranky old guy, but where is anything that we’ve done that’s even remotely comparable to ‘rhapsody in blue’?
and before you dismiss me as a crank, go listen to ‘rhapsody in blue’ and then go listen to anything recorded in the last, oh, 40 years and tell me that it’s in any way comparable. or go listen to anything recorded in this century that even dares to hold the hem of ‘rhapsody in blue.’
dismiss me with evidence, but don’t dismiss me as just a crazy old crank drinking brooklyn lager and listening to george gershwin.
really, go listen to it, start to finish. and then listen to top 40 pop radio for 15 minutes.
if i were objective and dispassionate and able to objectively assess our music compared and contrasted to and with george gershwin’s ‘rhapsody in blue’ i would make the following simple pronouncement/statement: we suck, and i’m certainly not exempting myself.
my work compared to ‘rhapsody in blue’? nothin’.
in ‘rhapsody in blue’ there’s nuance and complexity and subtlety and bombast and about 1,000 different musical vernaculars all exuberantly fighting for primacy with one another. and the end result is fucking flawless, from start to finish. even when it lags it’s still confident with where it’s going to end up. 12 minutes in? sure, it starts to meander, but so full of life and confidence, that the lagging is filled with pregnant anticipation. and the orchestral bombast contrasted with the delicate piano passages? fu…u…ck.
flawless. it’s like orgasms made out of chocolate and vicodin.
you might think i’m nuts, waxing absurdly rhapsodic about ‘rhapsody in blue’, but go listen to it, start to finish. listen. it’s so fucking good. as i said, the best piece of music ever written and recorded.
ok, that’s all.
goodnight,
moby
I love Rhapsody in Blue.
But this site isn’t about Gershwin, so you can guess where I weigh in on this subject.
What do you think? Does all of the music created in the last 40 years really pale in comparison to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue?
Or does this, combined with the fact that Moby wants to marry Britney Spears, make you think he’s gone completely insane?
hi, i like you web site and am curious as to why you always have stories about moby on them. what of his work is good electronic music? i’ve heard a few of his songs and they were filled with stock keyboard sounds playing uninteresting parts. i heard one song where he attempted to sing and play guitar and i actually felt embarrassed for him.
i’m really curious as to what of his i should be checking out. if any of your readers have any listening suggestions of his music that doesn’t sound filled with stock sounds, i’d listen and maybe then be able to understand why anybody cares about him or his interest in the equally talented britney spears.
joe
glad you like the site & thanks for the comments.
Whether or not you like Moby – he’s definitely one of the more influential and popular electronica artists of the last ten years. His Ambient album is a good example of chillout music and Play is one of the most successful electronic music albums of all time.
He definitely does have a fairly mainstream sound, though, and if you’re more into experimental stuff he’s probably not for you.
He’s been mentioned several times here because he’s not just an influential electronica artist, but he’s also active on the Internet in many ways, so he’s doing things that we can comment on. Nine Inch Nails is the same – they are experimenting with the Internet and engaging the Internet community, which makes them newsworthy whether you like the NIN sound or not.
If you hate Moby – that’s ok, just skip the article and let us know who you’d like to hear more about.
Fair enough?
thanks for the response.
i don’t hate the guy, just wanted to know what of his is good.
selling a lot of records certainly doesn’t mean it’s good.
for now, i will skip your moby and nin articles, thanks for the advice.