Vintage Muse

Perhaps because they announced that they will have a new album out this time next year, or perhaps just because Steve Jobs’ spinny touchy wheel thing on my iPod looks really nice but doesn’t actually work every time, I ended up doing an Artists – Muse – All Songs – Random on my way into work this morning.

“I’m going to blog some vintage Muse this morning,” I thought. “People need some vintage Muse today.”
But which song to choose from the 106 that I have on my device?

Muse in Cape Town, 2008

At first, it seemed easy: Unintended was on, and as the orange sun rose over the mountains, that seemed perfect. But then there was suddenly New Born and that was great too. And then Map Of The Problematique, arguably my favourite Muse song, but quite dangerous in an overly-energetic way.

Basically, each song seemed better than the last, which is no bad way for things to be going, but which wasn’t helping with any sort of decision making. So I made a plan: whichever song was playing when I arrived at work would be the one I would share. And that was Falling Away With You.

Sadly, the only version I could find of Falling Away With You was this rather dodgy live piano cover. Complete with a lot of coughing and other audience noise. Ugh.

You deserve better. And so you get this one, with its salutary-message-shock-twist-in-the-tail ending:

According to that link at the top, Matt Bellamy has said that the new album:

…should be something that really does strip away the additional things that we’ve experimented with on the last two albums, which is electronics, symphonics and orchestral work and all that kind of stuff.

That disappoints me a little. Not because I don’t enjoy a bit of vintage Muse (see this post, for example), but because I thought that the last couple of albums were ground-breaking in the way that they dragged in all sorts of drama and showmanship on top of their rocky foundation. It was all so new, so adventurous, so different.

Not everyone liked it. But not everyone likes One Direction and they seem to do ok!!!!

I will, of course, get the new album when it comes out. It will, of course, be brilliant. But it won’t be unique. And that seems like a bit of a step backwards for me.