How do you follow the biggest-selling dance album of all time? Like this...



In a year that promises big albums from many big dance music names, Mobys follow-up to Play is, by a long way, the most eagerly awaited album of 2002. Called 18 - ostensibly due to the number of tracks on the record, although Moby has hinted that there are also other reasons the album has the unenviable task of following in the footsteps of its Zeitgeist-capturing, 10 million selling predecessor. Famously, every track from Play was licensed for use on a film and/or commercial.



18 employs the full range of Mobys styles. Occasionally, the Deep South blues samples that characterised Play reappear, as well as the electro-gothic sound of Porcelain and the housier flavour of the music that originally made his name.



But the most notable and contentious aspect of the album is a seam of material referring to the events of September 11th last year, a date which also happens to be Mobys birthday. Much of the album was completed before September 11th and Mute claim that some apparent references to the New York attacks are nothing more than spooky foresight, but other tracks clearly refer to the terrorist attack and must have been completed afterwards.



Moby wrote, produced and played all the instruments on the album, which he completed in his home studio in New York. There are a number of guest vocalists, including Sinead OConnor, MC Lyte, Angie Stone and Azure Ray, a duo from Athens, Georgia.



Mute are quietly confident about 18 and theyve already begun raising Mobys profile again by having him perform the title track from the album as the Olympic flame was extinguished at this years Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.



18 will be released in May and the order of the tracks previewed here may change by the time of release. The album will be preceded by the single We Are Made Of Stars, sometime in late April. Muzik has heard the radio edit of the track, and we dont like it as much as the album version, but hey, well get over it.