I listen to quite a wide variety of music, but my favourite genre is definitely straight-up guitar-drums-bass rock. A well-crafted guitar solo will get me grooving (and making a fool of myself if anyone's around to watch me) every time. Bands like U2, Collective Soul, Delirious, and, um, U2 get a lot of airtime on my stereo. If it involves a band that cranks out melodic music, plays its own instruments and sounds at least a little bit original, then I'll probably give it a listen. However, for some reason I've long harboured an unconscious prejudice against artists whose music relies heavily on loops, samples and other "artificial" sources. I generally find such music acceptable in a live setting like a club, but I don't generally choose to listen to it on my own time.

So it came as somewhat of a surprise to me to discover that I liked Moby. I started really listening- and getting into- various tracks from his Play album about 6 months ago, so when I saw 18 I decided to grab it.

How do I describe music that fits so perfectly into the background of just about anything I happen to be doing? Stylistically, I think it's quite similar to Play- I guess one way to test that would be to mix tracks from both albums together into one playlist and see how well they play together. I think I recall reading some criticism of 18 a little while back for just that reason- it's too similar to Play. That's not a problem for me though. This is good music to groove to, whatever the occasion. It's not a particularly significant milestone in the history of music production, but I predict that it will be a recurring theme in the soundtrack to my life for quite a while. Oh, and the "artificial music" bit? Sure, those elements do occasionally appear on this album, but I don't mind. My musical taste must be devolving or something (the purist U2 snobs who can't stand the noise of Zooropa- which I have grown quite fond of- would probably argue that it was not very evolved to begin with, but there you go).

So, to summarize: if you like your music to have hefty substance and long-lasting cultural significance, 18 isn't likely to move you. On the other hand, if you need something light and mellow to complement another activity without being distracting, I think 18 is a good choice.

And one final reason to at least give Moby a look: he has a blog.

(This review originally appeared at the Limey Brit.)