Muse Conundrum

As a music fan, I can’t say I’ve ever experienced a conundrum as puzzling as Muse. I’ve been a fan of Muse since 2006, when I discovered their album Absolution. From the moment I heard their song “Hysteria” I was blown away by Matthew Belamy’s guitar work and I was hopelessly addicted to the rhythm section of Chris Wolstenholme and Dominic Howard. Yet as soon as I started to get to know the band’s full catalog I encountered a very strange problem. There were several Muse songs that I loved. I listened to songs like “Hysteria,” “Stockholm Syndrome,” “Time Is Running Out,” “Plug In Baby,” “Map of the Problematique,” “Starlight,” and “Resistance” almost 1,000 times (and check my iTunes if you think I’m exaggerating that point). However, these songs were all Muse’s most popular hits. Any good music fan knows, if you really want to understand a band or artist, you must know and evaluate the songs that weren’t on the radio and won’t be found in any greatest hits collections. If you’re a true music fan, that is where you’ll find some of the best and most memorable material. It is where legends separate themselves from the merely great. When it comes to the best in Rock ‘n’ Roll history, focusing solely on their greatest hits is like being satisfied with the trailer to a great film. Therefore, considering how much I loved Muse’s best songs, I was shocked to learn how terrible their lesser songs were. I don’t mean that I just skipped over them. I’m saying they were so bad it made me angry. I thought, How could the band that wrote “Hysteria” and “Map of the Problematique” be responsible for such shit? After a while of listening and analyzing I was able to pinpoint the specific things that bothered me about Muse’s music and, in my opinion, they are all centered squarely on Matthew Belamy. In many ways, he is the band’s greatest asset. In far too many others, he is also their greatest weakness. First and foremost, while it is obvious that he is a brilliant, highly-skilled artist, he is simply not a writer. Rock ‘n’ Roll lyrics are so wonderful and unique because their context affords an author several liberties that can’t be found in other areas of writing. Poets, for example, can only use clichés in very rare and specific instances whereas a Rock ‘n’ Roll lyricist can use them much more freely and, in fact, is often encouraged to use them. Still, there is a sizable creative responsibility on the Rock ‘n’ Roll lyricist’s shoulders. You don’t necessarily have to be a virtuoso with metaphors and entendres, but you must at least know what you want to say, how to say it, and what not to say. That basic task is much more difficult than it may sound and when a writer simply does not have what it takes, as I am afraid is the case with Matthew Belamy, it can be a glaring weakness in a song. Bellamy does have his moments. I love the song “Starlight” because it is probably the perfect love song for Muse to write and perform. Everything about the song is cheesy, but when a band acknowledges that fact and just goes for it anyway the results can be magical. The lyrics work because Bellamy begins by employing a rudimentary metaphor to initiate a tale of longing, hope, and love, which is perfectly set to the band’s heavy and cosmically enchanting musical backdrop. Bellamy knows who he is writing to and what he wants to say to her, and he stops just short of overexerting himself. Far too often, though, he can’t help it. He has epic visions and ambitions to match Muse’s epic sound, but he doesn’t have the skill to realize it all with his words. And when a writer swings for the fences and misses, as Bellamy often does, the combination of words hits me like nails on a chalkboard. There’s just no getting around it. Much in the same way, his vocals can also hinder even Muse’s best work. Once again, I must make it clear that I think Bellamy has amazing range and a gorgeous tone to his voice. Also, it is clear his two biggest influences are Thom Yorke and Freddy Mercury so he has first-class pedigree. But one reason why Yorke and Mercury are so revered as vocalists and performers is because of their amazing versatility. Either one of them could shift effortlessly from sounding playful, defiant, morose, lost, vulnerable, or hardcore. After having listened to most of Muse’s catalog, I only have one word to describe any one of Matthew Bellamy’s vocal performances: melodramatic. He may vary between his natural voice and falsetto, but the performance is always the same. Once again, it seems as though he is always swinging for the fences; like his grand visions and ambitions cloud his view of what is really required for a given song. To me, his vocal performance in “Starlight” feels the same as the performance in “Resistance,” which sounds the same as “Map of the Problematique,” and so on. Speaking of Muse’s influences, one of my biggest problems with their music is that too often they don’t have enough of a distinct identity. This is a very fine line to walk because any artist in any art form is only there because of the artists that came before them. But the best of the best use their favorite artists as a foundation upon which they build their own identity. In my own example, I’ve been trying for over half my life to play guitar like Jimi Hendrix and John Frusciante. But I’m not trying to write songs that sound like Hendrix or the Chili Peppers. I’m trying to write songs that people will identify as mine. When I listen to Radiohead, I am thinking only of Radiohead. When I listen to Queen, I am thinking only of Queen. Too often when I listen to Muse, I am thinking of another band. Usually, it’s Radiohead or Queen, but after hearing some of Muse’s worst songs I wish they would just stick to trying to copy those two groups. I know the song “Undisclosed Desires” was pretty popular a when it was released ago so I understand that many out there will disagree with me, but I think that that is the dumbest song released by a major rock band in the last 15 years. The music barely qualifies as a serviceable Depeche Mode rip-off, and Matthew Bellamy’s contributions are downright nauseating. His lyrics go beyond being cheesy; they show an utter lack of creativity in trying to execute what should be a pretty standard task, which is to write a dark and sexy song. Nothing new or particularly complicated there, but Bellamy completely drops the ball. And if there was ever a context in which his melodramatic vocals do not work, apparently it is in a Depeche Mode song. The combination is a train wreck. Now, as you know, Muse have just released a new album, The 2nd Law. I listened to the first single, “Madness,” a few weeks ago and it damn-near made my head explode. It is everything I hate about Muse – melodramatic vocals and weak lyrics set to an unmistakable Queen song – but, son of a bitch, I love the song. I wanted to hate it. Honestly, I tried so hard. I’m not even sure how they did it (aside from that stunningly gorgeous guitar solo). But they made it work. So, in short, it seems quite possible that everything I just wrote is bullshit. Well done, Muse. .

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