Daily Music Dose

I'm just going to give fair warning up front:

I AM GOING TO FANGIRL OUT IN THIS POST, WITHOUT APOLOGIES.

It's not often that a band comes along, blows me away and becomes part of my soul.  I know, very cliche' sounding, but true nonetheless.  Instead of giving you a largely technical and vanilla write-up about their career, I decided to recount my journey to loving this amazingly talented British trio.  

I first heard of Muse, believe it or not, from Patrick Stump.  I was watching a countdown of favorite videos on Youtube and his was "Knights Of Cydonia".  

I thought the beginning of both the video and song were so weird I just clicked it off.  I thought Patrick was having an aneurysm or something because he sang the praises of this band.  After that, I gave them not a second thought.  That is, until my friend Mimi talked about going to see Muse in Mexico.

No One's Gonna Take Me Alive

I then had second thoughts about Patrick's aneurysm, because Mimi has stellar music taste.  Nonetheless, it remained a passing thought and I went on with life.  Then, Santa Claus brought something interesting into our lives:

86 Days....

Having an 8-year old son has it's privileges....like indulging my your inner child.  While playing on Christmas Day, my son started playing Assassin.  THAT got my attention.  I absolutely loved the song the first time I heard it.  This is when I decided to take a closer look at Muse.  I went to Youtube and looked them up.  I watched "Assassin" live and was blown away by how good they performed live.  Living in the age of Autotune, I don't expect many bands to actually "sound" like themselves while performing live.  These guys?  A different story altogether.  The next video I played was "New Born".  This is where everything changed:

It was, literally, love at first listen.  The magical tinkling of pianos complimented by a warm, soothing bass.  Matt's gentle voice building to an explosion of heavy, frenetic guitars and deep, twanging bass that harkens to the "Evil Empire" era of Rage Against The Machine.  As a rabid fan of rock, metal and classical I fell off the deep end, completely and irrevocably in love.  I immediately went to my iTunes and downloaded the album "Origins Of Symmetry".  Just when I thought "New Born" was pure perfection, I listened to the rest of the album.  "Bliss" is self-descriptive.  "Citizen Erased" thick and lush.  Space Dementia...GAH, this song is gorgeous.  Think Rachmaninov meets 90's alternative rock in outer space.  The tense, dour verses and impassioned piano movements give way to a chorus of subdued falsetto, only to throttle you back from whence you came.  The rest of the songs on this album?  Incredible.  In my very humble opinion, this album belongs in your music collection.

From there I bought a couple more of their albums.  Absolution.  Black Holes And Revelations.  Allow me to add these to the list of albums you must have in your collection.  Although I don't own all of their albums (yet), I plan to buy more.  I can honestly say, I can't remember the last time I was that impressed with a band's body of work.  It's unfortunate that so many American people only know Muse because "Supermassive Black Hole" is in Twilight. (over in Europe, these guys are a big deal, and with good reason)  As much as I love that song, they have so many other great songs that deserve listening.  Dark Shines, Megalomania, City Of Delusion....actually, I can't think of a song that doesn't deserve a listen.  

Honestly, I could write a million reasons why you should listen to these guys, but part of the joy of music is discovery so by all means explore the sights and sounds Muse has to offer.  If you enjoy them half as much as I do, then my work is done here.

Muse will be making their American television debut on the MTV Music Awards on September 13th, performing their first single from their upcoming album, The Resistance.  The Resistance drops on September 14th.

  
MUSE