Commercial/Art

Moby: Electronica wunderkind, crusty post-punk or glorified jingle writer? Some days it's hard to decide, because his music has been used in so many ads. As I listened to his new album, a statement on the transient nature of humanity called Hotel, I couldn't help thinking that its songs would be perfect for those most fleeting of cultural forms: TV commercials. Here's what I made of the album and the glossy goods and clinical services I thought the songs would be perfect for:

"Raining Again"?
Short take: "Oh, and it's raining again, loud on your car like bullets of tin/Oh, and it's raining again, open the door and you're pulling me in." These words, delivered over slide guitar and a metronomic beat, remind me of steel-belted radial, with a deep groove.

Perfect for: Goodyear tires - this track has gripping power.

"Beautiful"?
Short take: Like Moby's hit single "South Side" from Play, this track swells with propellant guitar that's like the dawn breaking. It's the kind of cut that gives you a lust for life, saying, "You work hard, so you deserve to play hard, and you booked yourself one hell of a Caribbean vacation."

Perfect for: Carnival Cruise Lines.

"Lift Me Up"
Short take: At one point Moby dated Natalie Portman. You may know her as Queen Amidala from the Star Wars series. I know her as someone who makes my pants tight. She's so hot that I'd worry about performance anxiety. So if she ever offered herself to me, I would pay any street price for some pharmaceutical assurance, while listening to Moby sing, "Lift me up, lift me up/Higher, now I'm up."

Perfect for: Cialis.

"Where You End"?
Short take: Quite often dance music, such as this song, is imbued with bubbly, frosty synthesizer melodies, the breezy kind that sweep across you with a chill. When Moby sings, "I would kiss you now again and again/Till I don't know where I begin and where you end," I get tingles, like my entire nude body was stippled with flavor crystals.

Perfect for: Icebreaker Cool Mint Gum.

"Temptation"?
Short take: There comes a point in your life when you no longer want a sensible car. You want a luxury mobile with all the options, even that GPS shit. And you want an opiate remake of a New Order song to play while you glide along in your gilded gas-guzzler.

Perfect for: Any car that costs at least three times my yearly income.

"Spiders"?
Short take: A guitar-heavy tribute to David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, this song reminds me that spiders, while creepy, make strong, elastic webs. Ideally, I'd like my collagen to have the same tensile strength. (I bet Bowie's skin is still full of elasticity, and he's nearing 60.)

Perfect for: Lubriderm.

"Dream About Me"?
Short take: Ever heard the phrase "phoned in"? Well, Moby seems to have phoned in an Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark B-side here, replete with burbling Casio arpeggios. It makes me really want to review my cell phone's unlimited long distance policy and see if I can reach out and touch someone.

Perfect for: AT&T.

"Very"?
Short take: Go to enough raves and stay up on enough drugs, and you'll realize that sometimes appliances sing. And not just synths and drum machines. Around dawn when the thermostat begins to rise, the air conditioner starts sighing, humming and heaving like Donna Summer back in the day, or like Laura Dawn, the vocalist on this electro-disco track. The song reminds me that there's almost nothing as orgasmic as having an uninterrupted air vent spurt on your face.

Perfect for: Georgia Power.

"I Like It"?
Short take: Back in the halcyon days of Footloose, pastors knew that dancing led to promiscuity. This song, with its breathy percolation, lends credence to that idea. Listening to this moist number in headphones, I felt rows of alternating nubs and ribs making their way along my ear canal.

Perfect for: Durex Mutual Pleasure condoms.

"Love Should"?
Short take: Maybe it's just me, but I think vanilla soymilk kicks the ass of skim milk. Try it in coffee and you'll see. Better yet, bathe in it. I like to imagine parts of my life in slow motion, such as my body doused in a sweet, sticky mist of protein-rich liquid as I run through a flower-dappled field naked. That thought caresses me like this song's reverent piano chords.

Perfect for: A Starbucks soy latte.

"Slipping Away"?
Short take: "Hold on to people, they're slipping away," Moby sings on this number, which is layered with ebbs of synth chords that slowly develop like an image on photographic paper. The whole thing takes me back and gets me all misty-eyed with memory.

Perfect for: Kodak.

"Forever"?
Short take: Basically, all I have to say about this is that it's shitty.

Perfect for: Maximum Relief Exlax.

"Homeward Angel"?
Short take: OK, I've never had to douche, mostly because I do not have a vagina. But this generic minor-chord ambient closer - like an airy bastardization of a pinging This Mortal Coil track - gives me a not-so-fresh feeling.

Perfect for: Summer's Eve.

Tony.Ware@CreativeLoafing,com