Muse Mainstreaming?
 

Has it felt to anyone else like Muse is not exactly themselves in the Resistance album? Change is good, yes. However, did they change TOO much? It's so drastically different from Absolution, and its pretty different from Black Holes & Revelations, and all the other albums too. In a lunch discussion, my friends and I were discussing this being due to the popularity given to certain songs in Absolution (Time is Running Out & Hysteria) and the use of Supermassive Black Hole in "Twilight"

So here is the question I pose:
is Muse getting too mainstream, and catering to this mainstream? or is it just natural progression and experimentation of style?



muse songs can be found here: Muse Song List | Tune List

It's quite likely that their taste of mainstream success could have quite heavily forced the direction of their current release... I think the current sound of vMuse is one that takes itself pretty seriously, maybe, perhaps enhanced by some lofty commercial / popularity aspirations...

Or maybe they they just wanted to sound the way they do on The Resistance...

They are either choosing to become more mainstream or are responding to pressure from their label, yes.

It definitely seems to be going the way khfreek is indicating... it would really suck if they are getting hassled by their record company.... it makes me kinda mad to hear about that sorta stuff going on...

the music was flawless. they played music that sounds as good live as on a cd. they played songs like knights of cydonia which is a lot of hard guitar strumming.

im trying to remember which songs they played exactly... pretty sure it was knight of cydonia, take a bow, and hysteria.

Muse came to Auckland for the Big Day Out I am so gutted I missed it! But I spent the entire weekend with my friend Pete who adores them too by playing their albums in repeat and that made me feel better. Space Dementia has become an obsession for me...

Holy ****. You are so right dude. I just saw them 2 nights ago. There's many bands that I like better than Muse, but I doubt i will see a show that is on par with what I saw saturday night. The visuals were amazing. Matthew Bellamy was amazing. His ****ing piano was amazing. The only thing i regret is that I was not on the floor of the the Garden in Boston. It was still a sick concert though. I feel like I took Bellamy's voice and musical talent for granted until I saw him live. And its true, they did make a ****load of music for three people.

And in my opinion, The Resistance is a pretty good album. Different, certainly, but they have not ruined their sound. I like it a lot. I think I like songs off of Origin of Symmetry better individually (there are a few flops on OoS though, for me), and I will always like Showbiz because it's just a solid album, but in my opinion The Resistance is better than both Absolution and Black Holes and Revelations.

From what you guys are saying, it sounds like they are far better live than on CD... I ckuld understand that...

Muse have always been mainstream, but circa 2001-2004 nobody complained because they were refreshing. I hope that Origin of Symmetry remains as timeless to me in twenty years as I find it now.

The trouble is now that they aren't particularly refreshing. Yeah, they sound different from the 100,000 indie bands that plague our charts these days but in comparison with their older material they are thoroughly disappointing. Exogenesis sounds good but they filled the rest of the album with a lot of poppy filler.

They're not bad now by any means, just uninteresting. When it comes to riffy, spacey anthemic music, there's other bands I've found.

I have to agree with Obi here... they make fairly good sounding music, but if i want spacey, riff - focused rock, I can find plenty elsewhere in my collection...