Animal Rights by Moby

Animal Rights, Moby's fourth album, landed on Mute on September 23, 1996, and it's the sound of the techno kid kicking over the decks and grabbing a guitar. Fresh off the acclaimed Everything Is Wrong, the man who had helped drag dance music into the mainstream swerved hard into loud, abrasive alternative rock, chasing the hardcore punk he'd loved as a teenager and played in underground bands through the '80s. Alan Moulder produced.

It's a brave, bruising, sometimes clumsy detour, and at the time the reaction was a shrug at best: reviews were lukewarm, sales were middling, and much of his fan base simply walked away. The swerve proved temporary: three years later came Play, and an unlikely worldwide smash.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.