A Different Beat (Gary Moore album)

Though known for his hard rock work in the 1970s and 80s, Gary Moore's blues-based album Still Got the Blues (1990) was the biggest critical and commercial success of his career, inspiring the guitarist to continue the direction on his next albums, After Hours (1992), Blues Alive (1993) and Blues for Greeny (1995). Although he helped revive the popularity of blues, he abruptly changed direction for Dark Days in Paradise (1997), which featured influences of Britpop and electronic music. Although the record baffled Moore's fanbase and sold poorly, ==Composition==

A Different Beat moves Moore away from his familiar style of rock music towards a groove-based, dance-oriented style. "Lost in Your Love" features impassioned vocals and instrumentation, while "Surrender" is "blissed-out" and explores "the other end of the emotional scale entirely." "Fatboy" is a lighthearted tribute to Fatboy Slim, one of Moore's main influences for the album, and was built around a riff that he wrote after reading an interview with the producer. Moore admired Slim for the "60s, sunny optimism to his music that makes you feel good" and expressed a wish to work with him. The guitarist's cover of Hendrix's "Fire" is fast-paced; he credited the original version as a predecessor to the album's style, saying: "It's got a jungley rhythm, and when he made Electric Ladyland, he had a house beat, flashing lights–a rave! He also rapped over a lot of beats, so he was the first. If he was around today, he'd be into dance." "Bring My Baby Back" is a pictorial description of "a jilted lover's impending train ride to attempt a rescue of his former love." ==Release and reception==

A Different Beat was Moore's first album after leaving Virgin Records. Instead, he signed to Castle Music, who released the record on their Raw Power imprint on 27 September 1999. In the United States, the album's release was part of Castle's Midem 2000 campaign. In his Record Collector article, Jones predicted the album could further baffle "some die-hard metal and blues aficionados" after Jeff Beck's experiments with dance music earlier in 1999 on Who Else!, though felt that the enthusiastic audience for Moore's Shepherd's Bush Empire gig in October could ensure Beck "should have nothing to worry about." Drummer Darrin Mooney joined Moore on the accompanying tour and remained his drummer into the 2000s." In their review of A Different Beat, AllMusic commended Moore's "courage to leap into the relative unknown", deeming it completely unlike his prior work and speculating whether the change in direction was fuelled by "the new-found freedom" he felt after leaving Virgin, alongside his "obvious affinity with outfits along the lines of Apollo 440 and Fatboy Slim". They praised the guitarist's synthesis of rock and dance music, adding that "hearing Moore's fretwork gymnastics over contemporary dance beats is a totally unique experience." Burton Mail largely credited King's programming and keyboards for helping Moore update his sound, and praised the latter for making "a considerable effort to provide his fans with a degree of variety," while Birmingham Evening Mail deemed the album to be "an eye-opener" and praised Moore "for recognising the current music trends and attempting to adapt his hard rockin' blues to them." Moore later disowned the album, and felt he had "painted [himself] into a corner" and bemused his fanbase in his usage of drum loops and samples. Gavin Martin felt Moore had been "stung" by the critical reception to the "forward-thinking" album. In 2001, the musician commented that in attempting "to marry guitar with dance rhythms" on A Different Beat, "you're really crucified before you start. People who would be into what I do would probably hate those rhythms and the people into dance music would probably hate me!" MusicOMH writer Ben Hogwood wrote that despite the album's experiments in drum and bass, it was "not doomed to complete failure, thanks to the guitarist's uncommon ability to play himself out of trouble". ==Re-release==

Moore resumed working with a breakbeat on the song "Looking at Your Picture", first released posthumously on the outtakes album How Blue Can You Get (2021); reviewing the set for MusicOHM, Hogwood commented on the song's similarity to A Different Beat, which he deemed "Moore’s interesting if uneven excursion into drum and bass". Following this, A Different Beat was included in the four-CD box set The Sanctuary Years: 1999–2004, released through BMG Records in 2022. In his review for Classic Rock, Hugh Fielder considers A Different Beat a continuation of the detour Moore began with Dark Days in Paradise, "setting his bluesy guitar against an electronica backing and sampled vocals." He wrote: "Viewed from a distance of a quarter of a century, it's not as radical as it sounded back then. The drum and bass that propels Moore through 'Lost in Your Love' and the cover of Jimi Hendrix's 'Fire' is bold, as is the lengthy, ambient 'Surrender'. But the purists will still hate it." ==Track listing==

All songs written by Gary Moore, except where noted. • "Go on Home" – 4:21 • "Lost in Your Love" – 5:59 • "Worry No More" – 5:07 • "Fire" (Jimi Hendrix) – 2:50 • "Surrender" – 9:38 • "House Full of Blues" – 4:49 • "Bring My Baby Back" – 4:50 • "Can't Help Myself" – 5:52 • "Fatboy" – 3:27 • "We Want Love" – 5:43 • "Can't Help Myself" (E-Z Rollers Remix) (includes hidden track "Surrender (Reprise)") – 12:18 ==Personnel==

Adapted from the liner notes of A Different Beat • Gary Moore – vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, mixing • Roger King – keyboards, programming, mixing • Gary Husband – drums (tracks 3 & 4) • Phil Nicholls – programming • E-Z Rollers – mixing, remixing, co-production • Bill Smith Studio – design • Ram & Fab – photography ==Charts==