New York City's "Vicious Success" brought to you by Citibank, Duane Reade, and Pabst Blue Ribbon
Taken from an interview with The Quietus:
The Quietus: You moved to LA last year after 25 years in New York City. I am not entirely sure why, but this feels almost like a betrayal...
Moby: Perhaps it is. But if I were to be really petulant, I would say New York is the one doing the betraying. Because the New York I fell in love with doesn't really exist anymore. When I was growing up, I fetishized New York City. It was the land of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, it was where Leonard Cohen wrote 'Chelsea Hotel', it was CBGBs and all the punk rock clubs. Artists and musicians lived there, and it was cheap and dangerous.
And now it's a very attractive city where hedge fund managers and wealthy Europeans spend a lot of money for food. The interesting people have been priced out to the outer reaches of Brooklyn and Queens. The same thing has happened to London as well - I find London really exciting but there's a lot of vicious success here.
Like New York, there's a lot of incredibly successful people who feel incredibly entitled, perhaps justifiably, but I don't want to be around viciously entitled people. I'd rather be around broken people who have a degree of humility, and just get on with their work.
Preach love, hate, or indifference to him. But Moby is 100% accurate in calling out New York City as it exists today.
The city caters wholly and fully and only to tourists and to wealthy transients, to legions of students and well-to-do's who all disavowed their hometowns and limned only the shallowest, shiniest parts of Manhattan's remains for their Twitter feeds and Facebook likes. Struck by a gigantic hollowed-out mall and food court, surfing homogeneous happy hours that are Bro- and Barbie-friendly, and leaving pale legacies that are stunning in their sameness.
The Quietus: You moved to LA last year after 25 years in New York City. I am not entirely sure why, but this feels almost like a betrayal...
Moby: Perhaps it is. But if I were to be really petulant, I would say New York is the one doing the betraying. Because the New York I fell in love with doesn't really exist anymore. When I was growing up, I fetishized New York City. It was the land of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, it was where Leonard Cohen wrote 'Chelsea Hotel', it was CBGBs and all the punk rock clubs. Artists and musicians lived there, and it was cheap and dangerous.
And now it's a very attractive city where hedge fund managers and wealthy Europeans spend a lot of money for food. The interesting people have been priced out to the outer reaches of Brooklyn and Queens. The same thing has happened to London as well - I find London really exciting but there's a lot of vicious success here.
Like New York, there's a lot of incredibly successful people who feel incredibly entitled, perhaps justifiably, but I don't want to be around viciously entitled people. I'd rather be around broken people who have a degree of humility, and just get on with their work.
Preach love, hate, or indifference to him. But Moby is 100% accurate in calling out New York City as it exists today.
The city caters wholly and fully and only to tourists and to wealthy transients, to legions of students and well-to-do's who all disavowed their hometowns and limned only the shallowest, shiniest parts of Manhattan's remains for their Twitter feeds and Facebook likes. Struck by a gigantic hollowed-out mall and food court, surfing homogeneous happy hours that are Bro- and Barbie-friendly, and leaving pale legacies that are stunning in their sameness.