Review Summary: A review + soundoff in defense of modern-day Muse and The 2nd Law.
Why isn’t Muse cool anymore?
Where along the line did Muse go from being a musician’s “musician” to being the punchline of jokes? Because let’s just get one thing straight; the Muse of 2015 is not too different from the Muse of 2004. At Matt, Chris and Dom’s hearts, they’re still the Muse that everyone adored. They fell out of favor of the so-called music hipster gatekeeper elite, and why, may you ask?
You can point to
The Resistance as a start. While yes, The Resistance was a flawed album, nobody really asked for a 70s prog clone with a dash of Depeche Mode sprinkled on top; not to mention that the music was so overdramatic and absurd that people casted it away as Muse finally jumping the shark. But what made it so different from the classic
Absolution? No longer was Muse bordering on metal and symphonic; Muse went the other way and went for a Yes and Queen styled pop romp that had been growing ever since the incredibly uneven
Black Holes and Revelations. This eventually manifested itself in 2013’s insanely controversial
The 2nd Law.
Let me start by saying if you think Muse is trash (I’ve even seen some comments comparing Muse to Nickelback…sure, okay) then you can click out of the review, in which I will defend The 2nd Law’s tarnished image. For a band like Muse, who started off as a Radiohead clone before (of course, Radiohead’s music is in vogue as ‘musically respectable’) but evolved into a bombastic prog-influenced stadium rock band, they are just as musically respectable as Muse elitists claim that they once were.
Just look to “The 2nd Law: Unsustainable” for proof. Muse’s drummer, Dominic Howard discussed in an interview how he was at a festival when Skrillex was playing and simply couldn’t believe the energy rushing from the crowd. For Muse who, make no bones about it, are a band made for live consumption, this is what they feed off of. But instead of making a Skrillex song on a computer, Matt Bellamy pushed the boundaries and made a Skrillex-type dubstep song as the first half of a prog piece, and the “dubstep drops” being performed on a highly-modified guitar. People took Muse to task over this. Or take “Supremacy” as a song that is a response to the complaints that Matt no longer used falsetto, or made any hard rock songs; here was a song that was a multi-faceted song with a blaring falsetto. People complained about Matt’s falsetto, as if they’ve never heard the screeching high notes of “Micro Cuts”. It’s all a little insane when you put it in this context, doesn’t it? It all really goes back to the all-too-frequently used complaint of “selling out” even David Bowie made his entire career off of “selling out”.
While “Madness” is by far not the strongest single Muse has released, Muse has a reputation for releasing heavily commercial songs as the first single going back to their first album; “Cave” was about as
The Bends derivative as it can get, while “Plug In Baby,” a clear cut classic, was about as basic as it gets in regards to
Origin of Symmetry. “Time is Running Out” was unique in that it sounded a bit like The Strokes mixed with disco and a heavy dose of bass guitar, but wasn’t all-too-dissimilar from everything else on the radio in 2004. You get my points. So, why is Muse making a commercial song so controversial, especially as their lead single?
“Survival” is perhaps my favorite “Muse sucks now” song. A gradually growing song with falsetto, drop D riffs and a pretty fun melody that tears the house down live. Instead of complaining that it was too commercial (in fact, it was so un-commercial that NBC refused to use it as the official Olympics song) fans complained about the lyrics. Well, I’ve got a newsflash for the fans: “I have played in every toilet/But you just want to spoil it” is not poetic gold. Matt’s lyrics have always been bizarre, tongue-in-cheek and lack any nuance whatsoever. But, sure, revisionist history says otherwise.
In fact, what’s even more baffling is that the album’s hinging point, “Animals” goes fairly unnoticed. Reminiscent of that bluesy guitar from Origin of Symmetry’s latter half, it broods with a dark elegance and an excellent melody. “Explorers” was the traditional Muse piano track, and grows with a regretful longing, and a sort of majestic element. “Big Freeze” is a perfect pop-rock track, but done in the classic Muse style with the distortion from “Map of the Problematique”. “Liquid State” is quick, grungy and to the point; not too dissimilar from Absolution’s “The Small Print”. These are all tracks that jump around to different eras of Muse, but retain the stadium rock slant they’ve been pushing towards since Origin of Symmetry and all are connected by the bubbling dark electronic vibe under the surface and samples of orchestras, choirs, chanting, yelling, and theatricality. If you take all of Muse’s eras, throw it into a blender, and you’ve got The 2nd Law. But by connecting the songs together thematically and by returning tropes, it works.
That’s why people who complain about the album being too electronic, too poppy, too proggy, too falsetto-y, or just too scatterbrained are wrong, because you were never a Muse fan in the first place. You were a fan of a Muse era. I’d hate to say that your opinion is wrong, but this album is everything Muse has and always will be distilled into a modern formula. Instead of absolutely aping every trend, Muse has taken a look at what’s popular and what they have behind them, and said “how can we do these in a decidedly Muse fashion.” That’s what makes The 2nd Law an utter triumph. Yet, somehow David Bowie can be championed for taking modern trends and making them his own while Muse becomes a punching bag. It doesn’t make much sense to me, other than that Muse is no longer aping the “enlightened Music listeners” wet dream Radiohead, and instead have focused their sights on taking old Muse and playing it through a stadium rock amplifier. Thus is the problem for bands that switch styles as Muse do; you can’t keep all of your fans happy, and the fans who liked Muse’s Radiohead trends are a very vocal minority. For the rest of us watching the next great rock band continue their dominance, we can sit back and enjoy.
