In October 1991 Moby baffled Top of the Pops with a performance
of 'Go', a dance record - a techno dance record - and solo
composition by Richard 'Moby' Hall, created on his computer at
home in New York. During its almost lyric-less six minutes and
30 seconds of fast beats, atonal bleeps and melodic keyboard
lines, you hear 'go' shouted 37 times, 'yeah' 23 times, and
'hold tight' (I think) seven times; these words have been
recorded from various sound sources, manipulated, edited and
spat out again by a digital sampler. The Top of the Pops
director insisted that Moby should sing the words, even though
there was no pretence that it was his voice on the record. Moby
was as baffled as the TV audience. In clubs and discotheques -
where demand for the record had sent it high into the charts -
'Go' sounds like a touch of genius, but on Top of the Pops it
looked like music from a distant planet: no narrative, no real
instruments, no band. The kind of music Moby was playing, and
the method by which it was created, ar