ShareThisBy CHUCK CAMPBELL
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
"GO: THE VERY BEST OF MOBY," Moby (V2)
"Go: The Very Best of Moby" illustrates that Moby works better with others than on his own and that his best "collaborators" are dead.
That may run contradictory to expectations of the control-freak electronica pioneer who often builds his songs solo. Yet whenever someone else has the chance to grab a bit of spotlight on "Go: The Very Best of Moby," the release shines more brightly.
A frenzied live version of "Feeling So Real" is souped-up with the help of a cheering crowd, for example, and guest singer Debbie Harry pulls the new track "New York, New York" out of the mundane-dance-music doldrums. Also, an assortment of DJs put their touches on Moby's songs on a bonus disc (the main draw to this collection), proving that remixed tracks can be better than the originals.
More than anything else, "Go: The Very Best of Moby" separates his 1999 release "Play" from his other work, thanks to his use of soulful samples of blues and gospel vocals from 60-70 years ago on that album. The new collection features the sample-using "Play" tracks "Natural Blues," "Porcelain," "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?" and "Honey" plus a similarly constructed "In This World" from 2002's "18."
Powered by the reverberating emotion of the old vocals, those cuts rise above the other 11 songs on Disc 1 of "Go: The Very Best of Moby."
The bonus disc flips the formula, with remixes blaspheming Moby's respectful treatment of the vocal samples of "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?" and "Natural Blues." By contrast, such electronica pros as Pete Heller, Timo Maas and DJ Tiesto shake new life into "South Side," "We Are All Made of Stars" and "Extreme Ways," respectively _ and those songs, sluggish in their original versions, are vastly improved with more muscular beats and rhythms.
"Go: The Very Best of Moby" provides a fair summation of his career to this point. Moby has been an above-average DJ who has ascended to star status on a combination of luck, timing and the inspired bit of genius that was "Play."
Rating (five possible): 3-1/2
"SUGARFOOT," Michelle Malone (Valley Entertainment)
If Michelle Malone had achieved sudden success early in her career, becoming a household name as she quickly unloaded a string of multi-platinum releases, she might never have made something like "Sugarfoot."
She probably would have burned out by now.
Instead, all of her dues-paying has put Malone at the top of her game for her ninth studio release. The Atlanta native who has been churning out recordings since 1988 and who, according to a press release, is on the road for an average of more than 200 days a year, is blusterously confident on "Sugarfoot."
This rootsy recording smolders unpretentiously, fired up by Malone's passionate vocals and gritty guitar (she has become especially adept on slide). There are references to blues, Americana, pop and folk, but "Sugarfoot" is mainly just a timeless rock album that elevates the performer to A-list-worthy status.
Malone leaps out of the swampy turbo-Southern-rock contexts of "Tighten Up the Springs" and "Rooster 44," her raw bellows stoke the fire of the locomotive-like "Traveling and Unraveling," and she defiantly hitches an escapist ride on the breakneck "Black Motorcycle Boots."
She also shows a subtler side, dishing out soft vocal inflections on "Winter Muscadine" (where she sings, "What once was sweet grew so sour on the vine") and exposes artless vulnerability on the simple ditty "Leather Bracelet" ("Don't break my heart because it's opening to you").
The primal "Sugarfoot" isn't without penetrating moments: Malone's weathered singing adds credence to the weary comparisons of love to a "stray, rebellious bird" on "Where Is the Love," and the trotting "Down" engages in grassroots politics from its opening line of, "The men who run my country are running her into the ground."
Even when "Sugarfoot" stumbles, as when Malone aimlessly meanders through "Miss Mi'ssippi" and "Soul Chicken," the sloppiness is trumped by the guilty pleasure of listening to an earnest, competent woman do her thing.
Rating: 4
"FAB4EVER," Emmanuel Santarromana (Pschent/Wagram)
The best thing about covering a song by The Beatles is that no matter how bad your performance, you're almost certain to be working with superb material. However, no matter how good your performance, you're almost certain to compare unfavorably to the Fab Four.
Since singers and musicians are typically ego-inflated extroverts, the barrage of Beatles' covers is nonstop.
French DJ Emmanuel Santarromana unveils a dozen bold overhauls on "Fab4Ever" _ and though "bold" doesn't always mean "good," his success rate is fair thanks to his crafty production and choice of guest vocalists.
For examples, "Come Together" is well-suited to Santarromana's shaky bass-and-funk foundation and the craggy voice of Zita Lotis-Faure, and Marie Payen's soothing vocals on "Blackbird" are set off by his surreal arrangement of murky reverberations, distant electronic fits and resonant beats.
Payen resurfaces on "Day Tripper" and has to stretch to keep up with his electronic-massaged rock, but it works reasonably well. The same goes for "Across the Universe," where self-assured singer Constance Verluca calmly strides across his combination of gentle beats, remote electric swarm and irregular keyboards.
The DJ could have merely produced a mundane electronica take on The Beatles, yet to his credit, jazz and rock infiltrate the sound to create something more diverse (and rewarding) than an unvaried series of trance songs like the 8-plus minute take on "Sun King" that brings his collection to a numbing close.
Unfortunately, Santarromana himself takes the microphone on several tracks on "Fab4Ever," and though his naove vocals and heavy accent bring a charming bit of forced tension to "Back in the USSR," his singing stands as the worst liability overall on the release, addling the already-narcotic version of "Strawberry Fields Forever" and sending a missile of dorkishness into the soft Latin-jazz air of "We Can Work It Out."
All of these great songs have been covered better than what Santarromana musters on "Fab4Ever." But they've also been more egregiously mishandled.
Rating: 3
