Last one like Ghosts was Exo-politics, another fine tune (chronologically). Thing with showbiz is it becomes the answer in itself. Folk get into music for various reasons, but generally musicians love music. Love. No matter how skilled, hypothetically a musician is making a contribution to an artform they adore . Not constructing a monument to their talent. That's what makes good musicians voices so incredibly special methinks- they inject their loving souls into the lives of others. I'm babbling now so I'll go and try and talk myself into trying to snooze. Probably after I've listened to the rest of Black Holes. Knights of Cydonia presents a strong counter argument to what I've just said. Suppose a balanced album should consider loads of things, just ignore these posts I'm mashed.

Actually, thought the duet was auto tuned lol, must have given it a cursory inspection. Really like it too.

I know this is an old post, just wanted to comment (I'm feeling a bit fucked and come on here whenever I'm feeling washed out by the world.) Anyway, I really enjoyed this song (prefer the solo version 2bf, it's got a cool classical sound). It's very honest, and lyrically its the best constructed on the album. I've used music as a framework to explore this strange planet throughout my adult life. I'm hugely attracted to songs that put the writer's heart on show. Pain transcends into something else entirely throughout this number... art. Storytelling is there too, which is sometimes something that Muse could do better at. I read the Apple Music article that told me Matt was just kind of fucking about on the piano for this one, and presumably penned the lyrics to fit the piece. I wonder if that process should be something that they try and do more of? Like, put personal lyrics into a piece of music, rather than write around themes? The sound in this song really suits the band. Music always makes a difference to people's lives, but when a writer is concerned with fitting lyrics into a preconceived idea, it shows. That idea could be as simple as a branding thing, as in trying to predict where music is heading, or it could be hitting onto overarching themes that don't fit into song as a medium. Music from the heart is soul food, and I want to hear more Ghosts.

Hello. Nice Haiku. My interpretation of Showbiz fits your own. I invite you to consider the missing question mark in Origin of Symmetry though, as in what is the Origin of Symmetry? I'll answer my own question, cos that's what peeps do. Give to yourself, to receive to yourself. Taking Bliss as the starting point, reverse the perspective the narrative is told from. Matt ain't sucking joy from others, they're sucking joy from him. The whole album is a description of what it feels like, from the perspective of someone who is just plain smarter than the people around him/ her, to tacitly give up on their dreams, by their surrounding peers and loved ones. Who are all indoctrinated by capitalist structures. It's the only album I've ever heard which articulates the fury of the repressed artist accurately. Absolution invites the listener to make war on those individuals who repress artistic longing. By singing for absolution. It's a call to arms. I agree, both stand head and shoulders above their later efforts. As to the Kings of counterculture, I believe that throne will shortly become very important indeed, and Muse are the only ones I can think of to fit the bill (although the Heartless Bastards are pretty sweet.) The only time (barring Gandhi) that the forces of Conservatism were pushed back was in the 60s, which was the only time when the counterculture really was a force. No mere happenstance, though common historical dialogue doesn't make that link (wonder why?) If Muse are serious about positive social change, they need to stop wasting their time with teeny boppers, and focus on unifying the disparate elements which make up the dispossessed, and the lonely, amongst which the fiercely intelligent reside. Also, as middle class people won't feel the pinch of Capitalism quite so hard, targetting that demographic is a waste of time. Again, resistance always, historically speaking, comes from below. I still like sharing, so I leave you with this... I stumble through toxic roots, rotten shoots, Sunlight shall not shine on curious fruit, Those contorted trees, twisted travesties, Sow only disaster and apathy. Beware the oozing spines amongst the vines, Ferocious boars and squealing, angry swine, Sidling spiders and pouncing, fierce tigers, Forever stalking the careless outsider. Those pandering parrots, furtive ferrets, And malcontent monkeys hold no merit, Their impolitic ploys destroy my joy, A tempest, a deluge, I drown in their noise.

My central point needs a bit of elaboration methinks. Muse's early albums really helped me out, in that I went through a stage of drug addled buffonary that didn't end well. In effect, I dumbed myself down, because I was scared (amongst my working class peers) of letting my abilities shine. For good reason, there's only one person from amongst that crowd I speak to now. Music is a vast support network, anything felt by anyone, at any point in history, is echoed by musicians, in some recording, somewhere. We all feel the same breadth of passions, so music is a unifying force. I wasn't talking about intelligence in standardised measurements. I suspect Matt's intellect is something kinda new, in terms of raw processing. Why I think that, I'll leave to another day. It's really none of my business, anyway. Going back to that central point, the impact the early Muse albums had on me was to spark a sequence of events which led to the realisation that I am a bit different from your ordinary, run-of-the-mill Joe Bloggs, and that trying to become such a person was a) an impossibility and b) a waste. I'm also not quite arrogant enough to think I can be alone, and not stupid enough to believe I was born this way. I was socialised into suppressing elements of myself that are definitely my finest features. If Muse's early works appealed to me, there must be others out there who feel the same. Part of that process is just rejecting what run-of-the-mill Joe Bloggs thinks, and doing your own thing, trusting your instincts. In my case, my instincts were damned furious that they were being ignored, and I can't begin to describe the catastrophe of my late teens. So... if Muse's first albums had the power to help me shed the shackles of socialisation, there may be others their music might reach. I'm working off the assumption that such folk would already be so disenfranchised with the Establishment that they'll hate corporate rock. I certainly do. Reckon I'll round this post off with another poem. It's not perfect yet, but it never made the cut for the novel I've nearly finished, and I like to share. Judgement Those flowers fashioned such generous blooms, Salving my yearning with every caress, A verdant warren, an eternal tomb, A plentiful dungeon, with no egress. The sheer, fecund abundance starved my needs, And bleakness gathered, to drip as a tear, Swamping sturdy roots, smashing them like reeds, That bleakness grew, to unbearable fear. A lonely fruit rested, lost, neglected, As if cast from a clumsy giant’s grasp, For those red apples never plummeted, In any tempest which thundered on past. I took my ease, underneath twilight’s shade, And admired the apple, then made my choice, And crunched that morsel, an ambrosial taste, I suddenly heard a sonorous voice: ‘Each winter is melted by touch of spring, Refute that you cannot, and your dismay, To burst your shackles, of your virtues sing, Reveal the path, think on hope this day.’ I suffocated, left bereft of breath, The speaker rumbled in resonant tides, That drew me downwards to visions of death, And I wept from my disbelieving eyes. Showering the juicy remnants, which fell, From shocked fingers, that opened, spasming wide, The wind panted on me a striking spell, As if poison seeped from the fruit inside. I filled with wonder, no longer hollow, I stomped the core, a depleted token, The path was revealed, with answers to follow, Trudging, till my feet were tattered, broken. When, akin to an angel appearing, The moon alit to blaze along a horn, I hushed, halting in a hallowed clearing, It was the spiral of a unicorn. I flung up from my knees, where I had dropped, And ran in fervent, swift intensity, The bridle snaked, around my hands it locked, While the animal reared, so bestially. I was smashed by a hoof, a fearsome stroke, That ripped all fragments of thought from my mind, Through darkness I swam, until I awoke, I drowned, abandoned and alone in time. When I came to, the pain was astounding, I caught a glimpse through the leaves of polished, Gleaming flanks, snorting, could hear her pounding, She galloped away; a dream demolished. Away, in the distance, a vast mountain, Bubbled, boiled, unleashed fury at heaven, Expelled ash, an enveloping fountain, Searing vapours streaked nearer each second. When the unicorn whickered in the rain, And touched me gently, licked my brow and neck, A mantle of stars glittered on her mane, I knew her to be the goal of this quest. Inviting my hands onto her sparkling flanks Up I climbed, gently stroking, holding her tight Urgent heart thumping a landslide Though her pace was smooth It was the brimming sensation From somewhere inside Of balancing atop A magical ride Smiling Knowing that where I was going just did not really matter that was the power of the unicorn.

By conspiracy theorist, I take it you doubt that political classes exist, within specific geopolitical powerblocs? Funny that, goes against every observation I've ever made. I'd suggest you need to wake up dude, and consider that every choice you've ever made has been heavily influenced by the landscape you were born into. Maybe you're fed by the silver spoon yourself and find it too painful to contemplate the ramifications of the world economic system? I.e. daddy (or statistically speaking, less likely, mummy) paid for your guitar lessons? Must be nice to believe that the people who are bred to wield power are benevolent and not self-motivated arseholes. But since (statistically) they all come from the same expensive schools and therefore share the same values, I'm forced to think you should examine the decsions they make. 95% of carbon airline emissions come from private airplane use for example. Why is climate change being used then as a reason to curtail travel, when no attention has been drawn to that fact? Why are the media focussed on the evils of immigration when unpaid tax from the top bracket of tax payers represents ten times as much cost to the British tax payer as what is spent on rescuing political refugees from persecution? It's not people who think that are a problem matey, it's folk like you who don't

Muse had the potential to claim a stake as Kings of counterculture when they first burst onto the scene on 1999. Their observations on alienation within a capitalist society for imaginative people who wanted more than pushing paper around an office were profound and inspiring. But from their fourth album onwards, they lost sight of their target audience, replacing emotive honesty with pretension. They started targeting a wider audience, losing sight of the concept that their original audience were the only ones with the intelligence to understand their lyrical content. New album is class, though. Please claim your place on the throne of counter culture, I implore you lol. If you need reminded of one thing, mighty Muse, it's that historically resistance has always come from below (and yes, I've studied that concept). Next time a record industry exec asks you guys to write a pop ballad, think who you might alienate yourselves from. Most of all though, have fun. Methinks you guys deserve it... Candid contemplation simmers the clouds, Its bounty drips, to furrow thirsty ground, Sowing golden kernels—ready the plough, To nourish the starved, insatiable crowds, Crafting a garden, so fruitful and free, A verdant landscape, with fables to see, So bountiful, those magnificent seeds, Then they hack at the heartwood, commercially, They spoil the flock, eradicate the trees, And cast contaminants into the breeze, Corporations ordained this foul disease, For free expression is prohibited, Littering a barren waste with the works, Of dreary, doomed, and irrelevant clerks.

Alright dudes? Showbiz, the album, was a detailed study of an individual response to capitalist structure in a microcosm. Namely, that working class people are anathema to the creative soul. Your family will try to redirect you, schools will teach you to prefer to sit like a battery chicken in a call centre. And you're only ever as tall as your best friends. I've read studies about why working class people gravitate towards working class jobs. Sunburn was about family, for example. Someone was burning Bellamy's horizons, because he wanted to please. If you have an imagination, you begin, quite naturally to question if your social situation is wrong. This is the root of metal illness in the modern age... what else is anxiety except the product of a frustrated question, constantly spiralling out of control? I have a wee story to tell. It involves an imagination fuelled by copious drug use (psychosis) and an interpretation of Origin of Symmetry and Absolution that occured to me whilst deep within that psychosis. Clearly, the boundaries between what was real and what was imagined were blurred at at point in my life... Though I still think the interpretation stumbled across a truth. Bellamy went (possibly) through a similar experience to me, at some point in his life and equipped with manic self confidence unlocked his singing voice. Basically, equipped with mania he poured himself into the aforementioned endeavour... and through rigorous practice beasted that shit. I would suggest that anyone can sing, but someone with a trained musical ear, bloody stubborn mindedness and a powerful imagination would find that leap almost instinctive, if they could break away from the negation from their working class environment. i.e. I have no musical ear. Didn't even study music at school. Years after my breakdown I tried to come off my tablets. Didn't do much good for my psyche but... it got me interested in singing again. Coupled with my degree in Sociology (which revolves around the concept of social construction) and the interpretation that it was possible (evidenced by Origin and Absolution) I started experimenting. The above link is the result. Five years it took me and while I'm a long way away from pro I've still improved a fair bit. Language is the very basis of thought. Try picturing something in your head without using words. Any success? Returning to this idea of language, you now speak a different language from everyone else, if you have the bravery to follow. This (I would suggest) makes you potentially powerful, certainly if you break from the scriptures of the system that broke you in the first place. I reckon Supermassive Black Hole is a tongue-in-cheek look at that original decision to seek out Showbiz. Bellamy can see that he is getting more distant from his original self, because of the effect of being in Showbiz for so long. And that, I would argue, is the reason for the decline in the quality of recent albums. I see that power that he had dwindling aand I wonder, does he too? Resistance always starts from below. Did you know that the USA came very close to nukeing Vietnam? It did. Only popular dissent due to the civil rights movements of the 60s dissuaded the then administration of the USA from that reather horrible course of action. There are documents detailing the decison NOT to nuke Vietnam. I would suggest that the role of the truly imaginative in art is to nurture other imaginative artists so that more questions are asked. Not to pump cash into record executives' wallets. Music is a vast record of every emotion ever felt. That is its power. Bellamy has the capacity to inspire a whole new generation of artists, but he is squandering that promise I think, by broadening the appeal of the Muse brand. I'm not saying this a conscious decision, just a matter of taking the wrong advice (for self-serving record industry pricks). Go underground again Muse, please... Inspire us.

The land of the fey - Lays bare black, broken bones. Tumultuous passions released, The faerie scent - never fades. The land of the fey - An avalanche of emotion and glimmering skin, Dreams and harrowing visions, Breaking the bonds of my physical, muscular kin. Whereupon I lie down And freeze buried beneath the mountain, Glacial hatred seeps and spreads in filament Hardening, crackling and gossamer thin. The land of the fey – Grants touch, is a force unspent. Of course, the modern, the scientific, the platitude and the reason Lacks praxis and understanding. I belong here With a hangman’s noose and black, broken bones Rotting, creeping, cracking Beneath the bare caress of presumptuous hands. Love Love Love Never pipes in the ears of my grim sentinels. Intangible, the land of the fey. It cannot touch their senses. They have no silence. No guidance. No struggle. As I grow to swollen rage. The land of the fey – Is stronger; its pull a fine spider’s line. This garden breathes deeper, undulates tame comparisons As the navigator is impaled on the broken horn. The unicorn treads on... free I am lost Always lost Because the land of the fey - Shows me things others can’t. They won’t. Because a smile buys And an eye of glass melts before it hardens or reflects. Until death, my land of the fey – I belong and always have. Visions of the life that came before – it never was. I am the fey – I am and I am lost. Caught dying and I do – not – care. I simply breathe. And this has always been. See my black, broken bones. Revealed by the land of the fey.

Boyakakshaa

Need a good sax player tho...

There can only be one... 'Memphis Soul Stew' by King Curtis. I would die in a screaming orgasm. Yes'um,

Any song that evokes the feelings that Muse brought to my youth... Citizen Erased. You robots how I envy you...

Ok. I'm gonna be a silent partner in this group... I have my own reasons for not speaking out and they are basically that it would be counter-productive. But here's the basic: Hang tight people... school doesn't last forever. Also, under no circumstances be the first one of your friends to experiment with narcotics (I know, that will never happen blah blah blah). If you love something that deeply, letting go will make you unhappy.

I'm a bloke yes. But I did shed a tear when I heard "Working Class Hero" I freely admit that.

Jeezo... I'd buy them a pint. Then... dance like a test-lab monkey that needed a pee.

I'd suggest that Twilight was written with one aim in mind (probably by a group of ghost-writers, with one person fronting it) to make as much buddo as possible. A ragtag collection of unaccepted scripts sent in by other writers to Time Warner may well have been the basis for the novel. It is in my mind the most inane and boring vampire story I've ever seen. I watched the film till half-way through and switched it off. Read the book? You having a laugh? I'm not sure that boredom can be terminal but if I ever wanted to find out the "Twilight Saga" would be my first port of call. Anyway I'm still typing but only to make it clear why I hate Twilight so much. S'pose it's good to get peeps into reading but if I ever actually see somebody giving a kid Twilight to read I'll have to take action; probably involving a branding iron. Books are fun, please don't bore children away from reading. Give 'em The Hobbit.

Here's a question... battle of the survivors. Pearl Jam vs. Radiohead? Yield vs. O.K Computer? My vote is O.K Computer I reckon... but Pearl Jam rock my boat too. P.S. Eddie Vedder did the soundtrack for a film based on a book called "Into The Wild" and within this beautiful album there is a cover of a song called "Society". I highly suggest some avid listening to this tune... it might be my theme tune.

"Just" all the way...

I don't believe in predestination. But maybe, occasionally... if enough people wish for something that wish will be granted.

It's easy to change people's minds when you've got a gun to their head, yes. Getting them to question their beliefs is substantially harder.

I hate all religion, but respect Martin Luther... What do you think of the religion of science?