Animal Rights | ||||||||||
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Studio album by Moby | ||||||||||
Released | September 23, 1996 | |||||||||
Recorded | Summer 1995 – Spring 1996 in Manhattan, New York | |||||||||
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | |
Chicago Sun-Times | |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | |
Entertainment Weekly | C+ |
Los Angeles Times | |
Mojo | |
NME | 8/10 |
Rolling Stone | |
Spin | 4/10 |
The Village Voice | A− |
Animal Rights is the fourth studio album by American musician Moby, released on September 23, 1996. The album was a temporary style shift from the electronica music that Moby had previously released to an alternative rock sound influenced by the hardcore punk music that he had enjoyed as a teenager. The album was a critical and commercial failure.
Moby's decision to release a punk rock album was in part the result of being disillusioned by the lack of positive media feedback he had been receiving from the music media for his electronic works, which they struggled to comprehend and failed to take very seriously. Moby had previous experience performing rock music, having been a member of the groups Vatican Commandos and Ultra Vivid Scene in the 1980s.
The album was recorded between the summer of 1995 and spring of 1996 in Manhattan, New York. Moby worked alongside Alan Moulder in the making of the album. Ironically, just as Moby decided to change direction, the electronic music he moved away from started to gain recognition and popularity through artists like The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy.
The album's liner notes contain various pictures (the cover photograph features Moby at two weeks old, being held by his grandfather), an essay on the course of basic rights over history, an essay outlining Moby's disregard for the Christian Coalition, and a page with various "last minute maxims", such as "cruelty is unacceptable" and "you can't expect people to worry about the world when they can't feed themselves or their children."
Animal Rights was released on September 23, 1996 in the United Kingdom, where it charted at number 38 on the UK Albums Chart. The album was not released in Moby's native United States until five months later on February 11, 1997. The album failed to chart on the Billboard 200, but reached number 31 on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart.