(This was supposed to be a review of the new Muse album, but
I ended up just getting really Muse-nostalgic, so it is what it is…)
Back in what must have been 1999 one of my oldest friends in
England, and as obsessed with music as I am, asked me if I had heard of this
new band called Muse, because he thought that I would like them. Seeing as
everything took a million years to get to France at the time he sent me a
couple of EPs and their first studio album, Showbiz.
He was SO right, for the next few months I was so obsessed with the album that
I would play it over and over again, making all my friends fall in love with
them too. There was one epic moment that I will always remember, going up to
Chamrousse for the day to ski, 6 of us squashed in the car, driving back down
to Grenoble on the (scary) roads right as the snow started to fall, listening
to the album full blast and singing along to it, not knowing if we were going
to stay on the road or plunge into the darkness down the side of a mountain. Once
their second album, Origin of Symmetry,
came out (which I bought immediately, including all the CD singles that came
out with it), I think it was played in my apartment at least once a day, if not
more, especially when we had parties and everyone demanded to listen to it once
we were all drunk and/or stoned.
In any case, whenever I listen to Showbiz and Origin, even
today, years later, it reminds me of my room in the apartment I shared in
Grenoble with Maud, going to classes when we felt like it, writing papers and
eventually that thesis, having parties in the apartment with copious amounts of
beer and cigarettes and “vin chaud” that we would make on the stove with the
cheapest red wine we could find (I still don’t know how we even drank the
stuff, the fact that it was warm must have made it more bearable…). I can walk
around the streets of New York listening to the songs and place myself right back
there, with the same people, the same emotions and the same feelings. It’s
always incredible how music never fails to be able to do that. I still play
their cover of Feeling Good over and
over again (the same song Nina Simone beautifully covered decades ago) when I’m
feeling down and need something to remind me of happy times and places. And then
I kind of lost interest when they released Absolution.
I listened to it many times, but it never gave me the same feelings as the first
two albums. When Black Holes and
Revelations came out in 2006 I didn’t even bother to buy it, but the first
single from the album, Supermassive Black
Hole, seemed to follow me all around my 2 week tour of France and Italy,
and I couldn’t help falling in love with it. They appeared to be making changes
to their style, becoming louder and more on the progressive side of rock than
just regular indie rock, creating music that should be seen performed in huge
outdoor stadiums rather than mid-size venues. But to be honest, I don’t think I
gave the album much time because I can’t really remember listening to it very
often.
And then The
Resistance was released in 2009. I listened to it over and over again on my
ipod, walking to meet my friends for dinner, on the subway to work. More rock
opera than anything, it just sounds SO good when you listen to it all in one go,
especially when you are walking around the streets of New York. Uplifting and
somewhat depressing at the same time, depending on the colour of the sky and
the temperature of the wind hitting you. But I honestly can’t reconcile the
Muse from 1999 with the Muse of today – they are like two different entities in
my mind. Two different bands from different times.
I was a little wary when I downloaded the most recent
release, The 2nd Law.
There was no way they were going to strip back again and go back to a less
ambitious, sometimes over-the-top style (although that could be a good idea for
a next album?). I was worried that it would be even more over-the-top than the
predecessor, and on the first listen I realised I was right. Standing on the
subway platform, waiting for the train, it hit me that I was either going to
admit I loved it, or delete the download after the first listen because I was
actually embarrassed about listening to it. I went with the former.
It’s SO over-the-top. But it actually works for some reason
I can’t really explain. It’s definitely a follow on from The Resistance in both style and lyrics – while the previous album
was all about rising up and taking back our lands and laws, The 2nd Law is about entering
a new era post-revolution and surviving it. At times they sound like Queen, at
times like Laibach (especially Survival), sometimes like Marillion, sometimes
like the other Muse from before, sometimes like something else with a lot of classical
opera influences. But in the end it all comes together as a whole and just
works. I just don’t see how they can play each song separately live – I can
only see the album as a whole rather than a set of separate songs that can be
played between other songs from other albums. I guess that just comes from the
whole thing feeling like a rock opera based on the ideas of utopia and dystopia
and human nature and progress and downfall. It would be a great soundtrack to
that book I recently read and wrote about here, America Pacifica.
I still haven’t seen them live, which I regret and don’t at
the same time. Maybe this year… I’m a little obsessed with this album right
now, I just can’t stop listening to it.
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