On his new The Eminem Show (Interscope), the bleached-blond troublemaker everyone loves to hate is kind enough to level one of his infamous verbal assaults at, of all people, Moby. "You can get stomped by Obie, you 36-year-old bald-headed fag blow me/You don't know me, you're too old, let's go it's over, nobody listens to techno." When one of the best-selling artists of the decade decides to name-check you -- whatever the context -- well, you're obviously doing something right. And Moby's been doing a lot of things right for the past decade. For starters, he's one of the only "techno" artists most people outside the dance/electronica scene can pick out of a crowd. And that's not just because he's got a shaved head. No, Moby's the only electronica artist who's managed to make a dent in the same US charts that have been impervious to hot DJs and electronic wizards of all shapes and sizes -- even the most critically acclaimed ones.

If you're looking for proof, there's no better evidence than the out-of-the-box performance of his newest album, 18 (V2). It debuted at #4 on the Billboard Top 200 album charts before dropping down only to #10 in its second week on the shelves, and in "Honey" it has a viable single that's making an impact on radio. Moby was also nominated for a Grammy last year, and that just happened to be the same awards show that was dominated by the controversy surrounding Eminem's multiple nominations and his showstopping duet with Elton John. In the end, the Eminem/Elton John performance held together about as well as Moby's attempt to corral R&B nominee Jill Scott and Instrumental nominees Blue Man Group into something resembling a cohesive performance. But it got a lot of headlines, and that's what counts in our media-driven society. And given Moby's penchant for speaking out in favor of various causes -- he's used most of his CDs, including this new one, as a forum for an essay in which he lays down his thoughts on some political or social issue -- it's a good bet that the flak over the Grammy telecast is at the root of Eminem's animosity toward Moby.

Too bad Eminem hasn't been paying closer attention to Moby's career trajectory -- he might have hit his mark a bit more forcefully in "Without Me." Because though Moby is indeed 36 and "bald-headed," a full decade has passed since it made much sense to refer to him as a "techno" artist. (It's sort of like calling Jim Carrey a stand-up comic.) Indeed, he became the best-known techno artist in the US -- where we've yet to latch on to the celebrity-DJ phenomenon in the same way that Europeans have for years -- only when he stopped being a purely techno artist. For all the studio fiddling Moby continues to do, his highest-profile moves have taken him closer and closer to the more acceptable and accessible realm of rock and pop music. Even the blues, R&B, and soul sampling he did on his Grammy-nominated Play (V2) was mainly in the interest of creating new songs from old -- of fashioning verse/chorus/verse arrangements from a soulful, sampled voice, a danceable groove, and maybe a few musical embellishments to flesh things out. Before that, on his final album for Elektra (1997's Animal Rights), the former Connecticut punk picked up a guitar and took a trip back to his hardcore roots on a collection of 16 tracks that offered everything from ambient electronic chillouts to raging punk blowouts, including a note-for-note re-creation of the Mission of Burma early-'80s classic "That's When I Reach for My Revolver" that had nothing to do with sampling and everything to do with finding the right guitar tone.

What became clear on the tour that followed Play was that, for this avowed Christian, house-music anthems, hardcore punk, and soul/R&B/blues can all be the foundation for bringing people together in quasi-religious expressions of joy and transcendence. Moby had found his own way to bring the Saturday-night dance party into the Sunday-morning church service and vice versa, and it was a discovery that put him beyond the bounds of anything as simple as "techno" or "hardcore." It was Moby's very own synthesis, and along with decent album sales, it put him in a position to play Perry Farrell last summer as he organized his Area: One package tour. This summer's Area: Two tour is a rock/rap/techno extravaganza that includes David Bowie, Busta Rhymes, Blue Man Group, Ash, Carl Cox, John Digweed, DJ Tiesto, and DJ Tim Skinner, along with Moby himself (it's scheduled to hit the Tweeter Center on August 3).

But Moby's not one to rest on his laurels. At least not yet. Although he's done more musical exploring in the past few years than most artists accomplish in a career, 18 finds him continuing to branch out without overreaching. The first single (and first track), "We Are All Made of Stars," does homage to the dystopian post-punk new wave that seemed to dominate the British music scene in the early '80s. It opens with a real drum kit (and Moby does play all the instruments on the disc) laying down a straightforward mid-tempo beat before a filtered synth bass line sneaks into the backdrop and along with cold washes of synth and a repeating guitar line evokes the vaguely robotic pop that characterized the '80s approach of Gary Numan, Peter Gabriel, and even Depeche Mode, though Moby's vocals conjure Joy Division's troubled frontman, Ian Curtis. In other words, it's less a carbon copy of any one band's sound than an amalgam of retro sonic touchstones pointing back to an era that Moby's never fully embraced before. And though that may not be a giant leap for an artist who's already shown himself to be just as comfortable with traditional instruments (bass/drums/guitar) as he is with a digital mixing board, it's an immensely catchy pop tune that highlights his still-emerging songwriting skills.

Elsewhere, Moby takes his first outright stab at hip-hop with a little help from contemporary R&B singer Angie Stone and rapper MC Lyte. "Jam for the Ladies" isn't going to win him any Eminem fans -- it's a little too PC for that. But Moby does an artful job of blending Stone's soulful vocals with Lyte's rhythmic rapping as he lays down a straight-up beat and an aggressive bass line and punctuates the mix with a couple of well-placed breakdowns and some modest scratching. He had, of course, shown a facility with the various elements of hip-hop on past albums. Many of Play's beats were hip-hop derived, and one of hip-hop's primary conceits -- building songs by cutting and pasting together samples of pre-existing recordings -- is a skill Moby's been honing ever since he got into the techno game. Yet until now he hadn't brought all these elements together to create a straightforward hip-hop number.

That leaves 16 remaining tracks on 18 (yes, there are 18 in all). And about the only thing Moby doesn't attempt this time around is the aggro-punk mold of the noisier tunes of Animal Rights. Instead, he sticks to the approaches that have worked for him before. That means plenty of tunes where he brings his techno know-how to bear on the blues, à la the salient tracks on Play. This time he saves the lawyers at V2 the trouble of having to clear quite so many samples with the estate of Alan Lomax or the Smithsonian by inviting Stone, Jennifer Price, the Shining Light Gospel Choir, Dianne McCauley, Freedom Bremner, and Shauna and Lorraine Phillips to do their thing when it's time for, as Lou Reed would put it, the colored girls to go . . . He also keeps his sampling skills sharp on a couple tracks that lift their requisite gospel-inflected vocal hooks from other people's tunes. But you'd be hard pressed to pick the live from the Memorex without the CD-booklet credits as a guide.

"We Are All Made of Stars" isn't Moby's only turn on the mike. He lends his workable if not quite transcendent voice to three other cuts that veer away from the R&B stylings of the rest of the disc, sticking instead to the new-wavy overtones of the single -- though anyone looking for a second single should look past the other Moby vocals for something more soulful. And as on Play, he offers a few instrumental respites (three to be exact, including the title track), none of which is quite fit for the dance floor as it stands, though anything's possible if a remixer gets his or her hands on them.

Rounding out 18 are a pair of guest vocals that eschew R&B for a different kind -- a whiter kind, if that's not too blunt -- of soul. Sinéad O'Connor re-emerges from the where-has-she-been file to do what she's always done best. On "Harbour," she sounds righteous, melancholy to her very core, yet somehow stronger than the demons that torment her, even if it's never clear who those demons are working for. And the two women from the indie-pop outfit Azure Ray -- Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor -- are kind enough to lend their dreamy harmonizing to "Great Escape," a beatless ballad supported mainly by synth strings -- unless, of course, Moby has recently taught himself how to play violin, viola, and cello. Anything is possible in the musical playground that he's built for himself over the past decade. And if that's "techno," well, let's just say that Eminem has some very interesting ideas about music.

Issue Date: June 14 - 20, 2002