Hotel is the seventh studio album by American electronica musician, singer, songwriter, and producer Moby.

The music he heard DJs play in local bars, and the bands he saw perform live at various gigs, made him feel "like I was being given license to bask or wallow in my early influences".

[7] Moby reasoned this down to the difficulty in learning the sampling function of the audio recording software on his computer, but nonetheless enjoyed writing the songs without relying on them.

[7] After selecting tracks to record for the album, Moby began to search for vocalists to sing on them, but he was unsuccessful in finding people with voices he liked.

[13]In his 2019 memoir Then It Fell Apart, Moby recounts his disappointment with the album in chapter 42, writing how at the time he was more concerned with his level of fame and had alienated many of his friends due to his escalating alcoholism and substance abuse:Back in my suite at the Landmark I put on my headphones and went for a walk up and down the carpeted hallways of the hotel, listening to my new album.

I'd traded my battered little bedroom studio for expensive rooms filled with the best equipment on the planet, and the result was a compromised album.

I wanted to buy all of the millions of CDs that had been shipped, bury them in Nevada, and rerecord all the songs on the cheap equipment in my little studio on Mott Street.

Around three-quarters of the album, including the vocals and electronic instrumentation, was recorded at his home studio on Mott Street in Manhattan, New York City.

Mixing was completed at Electric Lady Studios, onto half-inch analogue tape, using a Solid State Logic J-Series desk.

The guitars used on the album include an acoustic, a Carlo Robelli model that Moby estimated cost $180, and a Les Paul Goldtop.

[7] He expanded on the song's meaning: "It's inspired by the anthropological seeds of fascism, and how easy it is for intellectuals to turn off the intellect and get lost in the crowd."

[21][23] Andy Kellman from AllMusic observed that Hotel shows little inspiration from Moby's previously advertised new wave and post-punk era, while criticizing his decision to hold off from sampling, which he felt led to an album with "all valley and no peaks", but nevertheless praised the "lovely" opening and closing tracks.

[21] Not all critics opposed Moby's decision to abstain from sampling; Christian Hoard from Rolling Stone considered the "nostalgic" songs to "transmit singer-songwriter warmth and clarity through textures that effuse autumnal beauty", despite their feeling relatively sparse, and the slower tracks "[vaguing] out".

[29] On the other hand, Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times was unimpressed with Moby's "detached, deadpan" vocals, which leave most of the tracks as "surface decorations".

"[31] Nick Cowen of Drowned in Sound felt similarly about the album's "bland and instantly forgettable" tone, while disapproving of the "unbelievably bad" cover of "Temptation", which he wrote was too "stripped down" and slow.

[32] Pitchfork's Rob Mitchum was most critical of Hotel, pointing out that the record "strikes the same mood of one-way-street sloganeering" consisting of "simple, familiar, and recycled" imagery, which dropped Moby to a "blank manufacturer of rock-by-numbers", devoid of his previously distinguishing characteristics.

[27] However, Entertainment Weekly's Doug Brog was more positive towards the album, commending Moby's "appealing cheekiness" among the songs, especially with the "big-chorus soft rock" of "Slipping Away".

Club agreed that Hotel still "holds out a few touching glimmers", with songs like "Slipping Away", which is carried by a "robust melodic hook", coupled with the "sexy, mysterious production and breathy vocals" on "I Like It".