Porcelain cover art

Porcelain

A Memoir

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Porcelain

By: Moby
Narrated by: Moby
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About this listen

From one of the most interesting and iconic musicians of our time, a piercingly tender, funny and harrowing account of the path from suburban poverty and alienation to a life of beauty, squalor and unlikely success out of the NYC club scene of the late '80s and '90s.

There were many reasons Moby was never going to make it as a DJ and musician in the New York club scene. This was the New York of Palladium; of Mars, Limelight, and Twilo; of unchecked, drug-fueled hedonism in pumping clubs where dance music was still largely underground, popular chiefly among working-class African Americans and Latinos. And then there was Moby - not just a poor, skinny white kid from Connecticut but a devout Christian, a vegan, and a teetotaler. He would learn what it was to be spat on, to live on almost nothing. But it was perhaps the last good time for an artist to live on nothing in New York City: the age of AIDS and crack but also of a defiantly festive cultural underworld. Not without drama, he found his way.

But success was not uncomplicated; it led to wretched, if in hindsight sometimes hilarious, excess and proved all too fleeting. And so by the end of the decade, Moby contemplated an end in his career and elsewhere in his life and put that emotion into what he assumed would be his swan song, his good-bye to all that, the album that would in fact be the beginning of an astonishing new phase: the multimillion-selling Play. At once bighearted and remorseless in its excavation of a lost world, Porcelain is both a chronicle of a city and a time and a deeply intimate exploration of finding one's place during the most gloriously anxious period in life, when you're on your own, betting on yourself, but have no idea how the story ends, and so you live with the honest dread that you're one false step from being thrown out on your face.

Moby's voice resonates with honesty, wit and, above all, an unshakable passion for his music that steered him through some very rough seas. Porcelain is about making it, losing it, loving it and hating it. It's about finding your people, your place, thinking you've lost them both and then, somehow, when you think it's over, from a place of well-earned despair, creating a masterpiece. As a portrait of the young artist, Porcelain is a masterpiece in its own right, fit for the short shelf of musicians' memoirs that capture not just a scene but an age and something timeless about the human condition. Push play.

©2016 Moby Entertainment (P)2016 Penguin Random House LLC
Entertainment & Celebrities Music Celebrity Memoir New York Funny Witty Success

Critic Reviews

"Even the most the most bizarre scenes are relayed with a deadpan charm." ( New York Daily News)
"...self-deprecating, hilarious and moving...." ( Chicago Tribune)
"Moby's writing comes alive when delving into the creative process of producing his music.... A distinctive addition to the recent spate of well-written memoirs by contemporary musicians." ( Kirkus Reviews)
All stars
Most relevant  
Unsure if it would resonate if you weren't of this era... but such a good read hearing from someone with such amazing recall. I really appreciated his raw honesty.

Loved this book.

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Loved the story... Didn't go as long into his history as I would have liked... Ie the newer stuff. Read in a very monotone voice by moby, little bit of animation would have been handy :) but I still loved it.

Great story, but narration by moby is monotone..

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Moby vacillates between endearing, melodramatic, and bordering on pretentious. Despite the aforementioned; an enjoyable read.

Straight forward semi-fiction

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What a story! So interesting to hear about the back story of Moby. Loved listening to this. Looking forward to hearing the next one

Total respect for Moby!

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I couldn't stop reading this book, what a fascinating life. the details he remembers is ridiculous

incredibly interesting , loved this book

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This memoir offers a fascinating look into the early days of Moby's career. Unlike many other artist memoirs, this book is refreshingly free of arrogance or self-righteousness. Moby's perspective on his life and career is genuinely humble, making for a compelling read. With Moby himself narrating, the experience feels personal and engaging, almost as if he's having a conversation with you.

Interesting Book Told With Extreme Detail

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I kept listening to this till the end hoping it would improve but the whole time I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Listening to this was just painful. The stories were boring and even though he narrated this himself, Moby himself sounds bored by it. I used to have huge respect for Moby as an activist but this book has significantly downgraded how I think of him.

Very disappointing

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