Music Stuck in My Head: Muse

The following post was written over a year ago for a guest post... then I bagged it and did something different, but I saved this post for a rainy day. And that day is today! So here you have my feelings on Muse, written a long long time ago... but with updated comments in brackets.

About three years ago when I was first in my Twilight craze, I noticed that Stephenie Meyer thanked a band called Muse in her books. She even went so far as to say that they totally inspired her and that she wouldn't have been able to write without them. She says in New Moon: " And, finally, thank you to the talented musicians who inspire me, particularly the band Muse - there are emotions, scenes, and plot threads in this novel that were born from Muse songs and would not exist without their genius." And in Eclipse: " I am in your debt, rock gods of Muse, for yet another inspiring album. Thank you for continuing to create my favorite writing music." And also in Breaking Dawn, which was even dedicated to Muse. "And thanks also to my favourite band, the very aptly named Muse, for providing a saga's worth of inspiration."

So of course I had to look up this band that I'd never heard of, to see what all her fuss was about. At first, I thought, ... hmmmm.. they are just plain weird. But the more I listened, the more I loved. Soon, my teenagers were also totally into them, and we found ourselves blasting them constantly. [Though now they are bugged by the whole Stephenie Meyer thing and figure those that came to love Muse because of her are not real fans. Whatever.] Then we found out they were coming in concert just down the street from our house so of coure, I got tickets! Wow, what an experience that was. First we had to suffer through a couple hours of awful opening bands, then lots and lots of waiting, but when Muse finally took the stage and opened with one of the very best songs, Knights of Cydonia, it was all worth it. I felt a little weird being an old mom in the midst of tons of rocking out teenagers, but if you looked closely, there were lots of other moms there too! One of the things people say the most about Muse is their amazing live shows, and somehow I've been lucky enough to experience this.

Here's a video of them opening their concert at Wembely Stadium with Knights of Cydonia:



It was about the time of this concert (Sept. 2007) that I decided my favorite song of theirs was Supermassive Black Hole. Such an intense song. To see them play it live at that concert was amazing! Then when the Twilight movie came out a year later, guess which Muse song was featured during the famous baseball game? Supermassive Black Hole!



Now, just this month,[which was fall of 2009 I think] Muse has finally come out with a new album called Resistance. The single, Uprising, is fast making the rounds. Also, I just found out that one of these new songs called I Belong to You, will be re-worked for the New Moon soundtrack. Turns out again that it's one of my favorites on this new album, though in their words, they think it's the weirdest track of the album.



Muse is a group of three British guys, led by Matt Ballamy who does most (maybe even all?) the song writing. His background is classical piano, which you can hear sprinkled throughout many of their songs. Most of their songs are upbeat, politically charged alternative rock, head banging type stuff. But then they really know how to slow it down to very beautiful ballads and soft piano tunes. They've put out five albums now. Some of my favorite songs, not mentioned above, are Hysteria (with some smokin' hot bass playing!), Time is Running Out (this is the one my son and his band have learned and they do a pretty good job too!) Unintended (slow and beautiful, but weird, weird video), Map of the Problematique (haunting lyrics), and Butterflies and Hurricanes(a taste of Matt's classical piano talent which comes halfway through the song.) Ah, I could go on and on, there's so many good ones.

Thank you to Stephenie Myer for pointing these guys out in her books, and adding to my ever growing list of favorite musicians.

I've since seen them in concert again, and it was just as fun the second time around. They really are awesome.