Includes liner notes by Moby.

PLAY was nominated for the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance. "Bodyrock" was nominated for the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

"Natural Blues" was nominated for the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording.

The Limited Edition packaging of PLAY: THE B-SIDES includes new essays, photos and drawings from Moby.

Personnel: Moby (vocals, keyboards).

If "Play" was one of the best albums of 2001 (which, according to many of my colleagues, it was), Play 2 (as some of them are inappropraitely calling this aural afterthought) was barely an album of 2001. In fact, the only reason that it has been released is because its homonymic predecessor did so well for the folks at V2 that they decided to let the (more appropriately) self-titled "little idiot" Play some more. Unforunately, this game is nowhere near as much fun. Instead of the Lomax-ed complexities of "Honey" and "Natural Blues," the frenetic Pop pops of "Body Rock" and the self-dueted street stories of "South Side" (the Stefani-d version of which is notably absent), more Play fails to climax, instead swirling around in endless loops which lead nowhere (e.g., the lifeless "Spirit" and the dreadfully bleak "Summer"). The only vocalized track, "Whispering Wind," is mumbled and mindless to the point that a lyric sheet adds little. And the "liner notes" (i.e., graphics of a cutesy alien lost in a large landscape and the artist speaking into an orange) also pale dramatically compared to Play's provocative prose. In this age of original soundtracks which (if they also prove popular enough) are followed by albums of "music inspired by--" this album of B-list songs is both uninspired and uninspiring. ~ Matthew Robinson

Following a notorious flirtation with alternative rock, Moby returned to the electronic dance mainstream on the 1997 album I Like to Score. With 1999's Play, he made yet another leap back toward the electronica base that had passed him by during the mid-'90s. The first two tracks, "Honey" and "Find My Baby," weave short blues or gospel vocal samples around rather disinterested breakbeat techno. This version of blues-meets-electronica is undoubtedly intriguing to the all-important NPR crowd, but it is more than just a bit gimmicky to any techno fans who know their Carl Craig from Carl Cox. Fortunately, Moby redeems himself in a big way over the rest of the album with a spate of tracks that return him to the evocative, melancholy techno that's been a specialty since his early days. The tinkly piano line and warped string samples on "Porcelain" frame a meaningful, devastatingly understated vocal from the man himself, while "South Side" is just another pop song by someone who shouldn't be singing -- that is, until the transcendent chorus redeems everything. Surprisingly, many of Moby's vocal tracks are highlights; he has an unerring sense of how to frame his fragile vocals with sympathetic productions. Occasionally, the similarities to contemporary dance superstars like Fatboy Slim and Chemical Brothers are just a bit too close for comfort, as on the stale big-beat anthem "Bodyrock." Still, Moby shows himself back in the groove after a long hiatus, balancing his sublime early sound with the breakbeat techno evolution of the '90s. ~ John Bush

A two-disc box combining the regular version of Moby's 1999 breakout Play with an extra disc of not-quite-ready-for-regular-release material, Play/The B Sides ends up quite close to what regular listeners would expect from a collection like this. There are a few blues-sampling songs similar to "Play" (though none are as good), some slightly groovy but still atmospheric tracks of trance-techno, a few interesting electronics experiments, and a bit of beatbox funk, all of it distinctly inferior to what was heard on Play -- which proves nothing much more than the fact that Moby is a good editor as well as a great producer. As he admits in the liner notes, these tracks probably wouldn't be getting a wide release if not for the incredible success of Play, and the truth is that few other than true believers will really relish this collection. ~ John Bush

A marked departure from the sound of his groundbreaking EVERYTHING IS WRONG and his subsequent hard-edged output, PLAY finds Moby charting new territory. Abandoning the breakneck drive of techno punk for looser, groovier structures entrenched in dance-oriented hip-hop brings a whole new feeling to Moby's vast and varied sonic canvas. Several songs, including the hit single "Honey," are distinguished by the appearance of early American field recordings, looped bits of African American spirituals and folk songs culled from the Alan Lomax catalogue.

Moby's penchant for complex composition is in evidence here, as layer after layer of keyboard ornamentation, percussive effects, guitar, vocals (Moby sings and also plays all the instruments), and pulsing, echoing beats create a rich, deeply textured tapestry. PLAY shows that Moby's sophisticated sense of sound collage hasn't dulled, and the combination of these wide-ranging sonic experiments with unique historical samples and rootsier, more accessible beats indicates his ever-changing vision as an artist.

Moby broke new ground in electronica with the 1999 release of PLAY, which found him delving into old field recordings of gospel singers, blues shouters, and work songs, while adding his own electronic wizardry. This mix of past and future spoke solidly to the present, and cast Moby as an individualist in a field too often filled with lemming-like trend-followers.

This limited-edition version of PLAY is a two-CD affair that contains not only the original album tracks, but also a wealth of B-sides from PLAY's single releases. On the latter, Moby experiments even further with his unique mixture of organic and electronic sounds. To sweeten the pot still further, photographs and new essays by Moby are included in the elaborate package.