Initially issued to lackluster sales, it topped numerous album charts months after its release and was certified platinum in more than 20 countries.

However, positive reactions to Animal Rights from fellow artists such as Terence Trent D'Arby, Axl Rose, and Bono inspired Moby to continue producing music.

[3] Moby recalled a moment from March 1999, after Play had been mixed and sequenced, where he sat on the grass in Sara Delano Roosevelt Park: "I was sitting by the little tire swings that had been chewed apart by the pit bulls [...] thinking to myself, 'When this record comes out, it will be the end of my career.

[11] Play was particularly notable for its use of samples from field recordings collected by Alan Lomax and compiled on the 1993 box set Sounds of the South: A Musical Journey from the Georgia Sea Islands to the Mississippi Delta.

[2] "Porcelain" and "South Side" are both anchored by Moby's own lead vocals, and are among several songs on the album that spotlight his trademark "evocative, melancholy" techno sound, according to Bush.

[2] Further damaging the album's commercial prospects, Play's songs received little airplay from radio stations or television networks such as MTV.

[22] Moby and his management, however, soon found another approach to increasing public exposure of Play, by way of licensing its songs for use in films, television shows, and commercials.

[7] Moby's manager Barry Taylor recalled that after the producers of a British television program sent a fax requesting for permission to use "7", the only track from Play that had yet to be licensed, "we celebrated.

The licensing approach proved successful in increasing Play's visibility, and subsequently radio and MTV airplay for the album's songs began to pick up.

[28] While it only reached number 38 on the American Billboard 200 chart, the album sold over two million copies in the US, enjoying steady sales for months and constant popularity.

[29] Play has been certified platinum in more than 20 countries,[27] and with over 12 million copies sold worldwide, it is the biggest-selling electronica album of all time.

[39] Numerous music videos were commissioned for the album's singles, directed by filmmakers such as Jonas Åkerlund ("Porcelain"), Roman Coppola ("Honey"), Joseph Kahn ("South Side"), and David LaChapelle ("Natural Blues").

[42] It features most of the music videos for Play's singles; an 88-minute megamix of various remixes of the album's songs, accompanied by animated visuals; a performance by Moby on Later... with Jools Holland; a compilation of footage shot by Moby on tour titled Give an Idiot a Camcorder; an interactive component that allows users to remix "Bodyrock" and "Natural Blues"; and a bonus CD containing the aforementioned megamix.

"[53] He deemed the album "no more focused" than Moby's previous "brilliant messes" but still "one of those records whose drive to beauty should move anybody who just likes, well, music itself.

"[54] In his review for AllMusic, John Bush stated that Play showed Moby "balancing his sublime early sound with the breakbeat techno evolution of the '90s.

"[9] Barry Walters from Rolling Stone said "the ebb and flow of eighteen concise, contrasting cuts writes a story about Moby's beautifully conflicted interior world while giving the outside planet beats and tunes on which to groove.

"[51] David Browne, writing in Entertainment Weekly, felt that despite some needed editing, Moby's graceful soundscapes filter out the original recordings' antiquated sound and "make the singers' heartache and hope seem fresh again.

"[49] At the end of 1999, Play was voted the year's best album in the Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics published in The Village Voice.

NPR named Play one of the 300 most important American records of the 20th century, as determined by the network's news and cultural programming staff, prominent critics, and scholars.

So Moby's handlers swamped the mass market through the side door, placing swatches of all 18 songs (most many times) on movie and TV soundtracks and in ads for the likes of Volkswagen, Baileys Irish Cream and American Express.

But the main reason this album will sound familiar the way Beethoven's Ninth does to a classical ignoramus is that little bits of it have seeped into most Americans' brains.

For this be grateful, because those bits are intensely pleasurable as melody or texture or sometimes beat, and because Moby has ordered, paced, and segued them and their intimate surroundings into something that suggests a surging and receding whole.

A Treacherous Three rap powers "Bodyrock," but most of the identifiable sources are little-known blues and gospel singers first archived by folklorist Alan Lomax.