Moby: Britney Spears doesn't make music
(CBS) One thing about Moby: The guy speaks his mind. He has no problem talking about his feelings regarding mean anonymous commenters on Gawker or letting the world know what he thinks of Britney Spears.
"It's advertising for ringtones," he tells the music website Spinner.
He doesn't mean that as a criticism. More like a statement of fact. (He thinks the same of Kesha, Black Eyed Peas and Rihanna, too.)
"It's fun, but I don't think of it as music," he added. "It's manufactured."
The musician and DJ tells Spinner that music communicates emotion and integrity and the sounds made by Rihanna, Kesha and Spears are "hyper-produced corporate product."
Of note: Moby's 1999 album "Play" sold more than 10 million copies. The record made history for being a successful marketing and advertising story as well as an artistic endeavor. In May 2002 "Wired" wrote,
"The dozen and a half songs on 'Play,' for instance, have been sold hundreds of times for commercials, movies, and TV shows - a licensing venture so staggeringly lucrative that the album was a financial success months before it reached its multi-platinum sales total."
Whether Moby's music makes people feel emotion - or that the Black Eyed Peas' music, for example, doesn't - is open to debate. A song such as "Natural Blues" on "Play" seems manufactured for the sole purpose of conveying emotion. Does that make it more or less effective? Moby's next live show is in London on June 2.