AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Moby

 

Artist:Moby f/Gwen Stefani

Song:South Side

Album:Play

Richard Melville "Moby" Hall had great success on the dance charts in the 90s. The 1999 album Play crossed over to mainstream and is his best selling album mostly due to the success of the single South Side. Hall also is a busy producer. He was born Sept. 11, 1965 in Harlem, NY. His father died in a car crash when Hall was two years old but not before he gave his son the nickname Moby. The family ancestors included Moby Dick author Herman Melville. His mother was a drug addict so Hall was raised by his grandparents in Darien, CT. Hall started DJing while he was attending the University of Connecticut. He dropped out of school in 1984 to pursue music full time. He was into electronic music very early on. In 1990 he signed with the small Instinct label and released singles under several names. After his 1991 single Go charted in England, Hall started doing remixes for Smashing Pumpkins and Soundgarden. He unsuccessfully tried to get out of his contract. Instinct's response was to release an album of his demos. He eventually paid them $10K to leave. Hall signed with Elektra in 1993. He released two albums for Elektra. His 1997 remix of the James Bond Theme topped the dance charts and was a top ten hit in England. He was getting a lot of critical acclaim but it wasn't turning into record sales. Hall abandoned electronic music for the 1997 album Animal Rights. His fans did not want to her alt rock from him and they deserted him. After Hall left Elektra for V2, he returned to electronic music for the 1999 album Play. The album sold 2.7M worldwide. And the single South Side reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100. It's his biggest success to date. Gwen Stefani was supposed to appear on South Side. But she was touring with No Doubt at the time had limited availability. She recorded her vocal but Hall wasn't happy with them and left the vocals off the album version. Her vocals were restored for the single because she was already in the video. I'm surprised that V2 didn't add that to a release of Play. But she doesn't add much to the song and Play is available as a budget CD. After two albums for V2, Hall had mostly recorded for his own label. He's still around. He released a new album in May. His music is mainly ambient these days. Here's the video of South Side by Moby featuring Gwen Stefani.