Porcelain

Porcelain

Moby

“Porcelain” was the sixth single off Moby’s commercial breakthrough Play. The song, a melancholic electronic ballad, was based on particularly painful breakup. Moby recalled:

I was involved with this really, really wonderful woman, and I loved her very much. But I knew deep in my heart of hearts that we had no business being romantically involved. So, it’s sort of about being in love with someone but knowing you shouldn’t be with them.

The song was featured prominently in the trailer and promotional material for the Leonardo DiCaprio thriller The Beach, which helped elevate the song’s profile. It became a worldwide hit and one of Moby’s most beloved compositions. (So beloved that he named his 2016 memoir after the song.)

The song took on a new life nearly twenty years after its release when A$AP Rocky sampled “Porcelain” extensively for his hit “A$AP Forever”.

Writing for AllMusic, Liana Jonas summarized the song’s legacy thusly:

What makes “Porcelain” such a groundbreaking recording is that it helped bring electronic music into the limelight. It was so well-received upon its release in 1999 that it enjoyed cross-format radio play and remains a genre-straddling phenomenon.