Mute UK [Non-Emd]
2000
Play/The B Sides
About This Album
If "Play" was one of the best albums of 2001 (which, according to many of my colleagues, it was), Play 2 (as some of them are inappropraitely calling this aural afterthought) was barely an album of 2001. In fact, the only reason that it has been released is because its homonymic predecessor did so well for the folks at V2 that they decided to let the (more appropriately) self-titled "little idiot" Play some more. Unforunately, this game is nowhere near as much fun. Instead of the Lomax-ed complexities of "Honey" and "Natural Blues," the frenetic Pop pops of "Body Rock" and the self-dueted street stories of "South Side" (the Stefani-d version of which is notably absent), more Play fails to climax, instead swirling around in endless loops which lead nowhere (e.g., the lifeless "Spirit" and the dreadfully bleak "Summer"). The only vocalized track, "Whispering Wind," is mumbled and mindless to the point that a lyric sheet adds little. And the "liner notes" (i.e., graphics of a cutesy alien lost in a large landscape and the artist speaking into an orange) also pale dramatically compared to Play's provocative prose. In this age of original soundtracks which (if they also prove popular enough) are followed by albums of "music inspired by--" this album of B-list songs is both uninspired and uninspiring. ~ Matthew Robinson, All Music Guide
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 3 and 6)

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Disc 2 (try tracks 1,2 and 4)

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