Welcome to Hard Times

Moby’s latest release is a return to his orchestral, soul, trip-hop and gospel-infused sound. Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt is Moby’s 15th studio album, recorded over the last two years after the events of November 2016. The album, running nearly an hour long, is like being immersed in a deep dark pool of water, and Moby uses a dramatic orchestral backdrop to explore the end of times.

It’s clear that Moby struggles with the state of the world today, and his vocals are more like bitter mutterings throughout the album. The heartwrenching, expansive sound feels like the crushing weight of the emotional turmoil Moby must be experiencing. Like the soundtrack to a post-apocalyptic city in ruins, there is little hope in these songs. However lush and melodic the album is, it is difficult to get past the feeling of despair drenched into every song.

“The Last of Goodbyes” is laden with unsettling backing vocals that become washed out with the angelic and robotic voice of Mindy Jones calling out “Oh / It’s the last of goodbyes.” The song “The Ceremony of Innocence” follows with a simple piano melody and Moby singing as if telling a sad tale of survival from long ago. Orchestral strings rise up and add to the terror of his story. The album ends with “A Dark Cloud Is Coming,” featuring Apollo Jane, who hums a haunting melody before singing, “A dark cloud is coming / Come for me now” in a manner that is almost challenging the powers that be to bring their worst. It’s a mournful resignation for an album that seems to be contemplating the flawed saga of the human condition.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Moby said, “After the election, rather than blow my brains out or move to Denmark, I took a step back and said, ‘The common denominator to everything that’s wrong is us, as a species.’ The subtext of the 20th century, and into the 21st century, is making egregiously terrible choices when we know better. The record itself is, rather than looking at systems and rather than looking at politics, looking at who we are as a species. Basically [we’re] these scared, vicious monkeys. We still are behaving like we’re on the Serengeti two million years ago, and we’re about to get eaten by jaguars, and we have nothing to eat.”

The titles of two songs on Everything are named after lines from the John Yeats poem, “The Second Coming.” Moby explains his reason for the titles by saying, “Apparently in the year after the election, Google searches for that poem have gone up like 500 percent, because it is such a horrifying description of what we’re going through. Good old Trump is – the only difference is we always assumed the anti-Christ wouldn’t be stupid. We have Trump, the anti-Christ, and he’s just a dimwit. I guess we always assumed evil would be a little smarter.”

Like most of us, Moby is terrified for the state of the world and anxious for a light at the end of the tunnel. He is worthy of respect for taking these fears and turning them into music that channels that emotion into something greater. Everything is a powerful message that challenges the endless stream of terror flooding through social media and around again, Moby is directly addressing how this is all weighing on him, and it deserves your consideration.