Play: The B Sides ends up quite close to what regular listeners would expect from a collection like this. There are a few blues-sampling songs similar to "Play" (though none are as good), some slightly groovy but still atmospheric tracks of trance-techno, a few interesting electronics experiments, and a bit of beatbox funk, all of it distinctly inferior to what was heard on
Play -- which proves nothing much more than the fact that
Moby is a good editor as well as a great producer. As he admits in the liner notes, these tracks probably wouldn't be getting a wide release if not for the incredible success of
Play, and the truth is that few other than true believers will really relish this collection. [
Play: The B Sides was originally released as part of the two-disc box
Play/Play: The B Sides in combination with the regular version of
Moby's 1999 breakout
Play.]