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New Born Lee

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Posts posted by New Born Lee

  1. It is not a critic's job to do all the research and interpret everything from the musician's point of view. THAT would be a lack of journalistic integrity.

    It's their job to provide their authentic personal perspective and offer their curation of music to their readers. To many critics, lyrics like "take off your mask" after the COVID pandemic has happened are sloppy because it's obviously going to be misinterpreted regardless of what the lyricist's intent was. That isn't some highly personal, memory-from-childhood interpretation. It requires knowledge and awareness of THE PANDEMIC, something literally everyone knows about. The fact that Matt even TRIED to provide another interpretion is frankly ludicrous - like, you'd have to be DEAD TO THE WORLD to not notice the connotations of "take off your mask" in the current context. ESPECIALLY considering the revolutionary themes in their music. There's EVERYTHING Matt could have done about it. That's why it's SO SLOPPY.

    It REALLY doesn't matter if Brian May didn't mind Muse ripping off Queen. Sounding so very like Queen like Muse have in their songs is tacky to many critics because it sounds like they're piggybacking off the appeal of a style without offering anything new. Critics are more likely to use phrases like "ripping off" not only because they are more impactful/inflammatory - and ultimately journalism feeds off that - but because they do not need to explain why sounding very like another artist is tacky. It's shorthand.

     

    • Haha 1
  2. Hopping back on for my 2c.

    Won't Stand Down is terrible. The vocal melody on the verses is so SO BAD WHY DIDN'T SOMEONE SHAKE MATT WHEN HE WROTE IT. Dumb fuzz-filter on the pre-chorus. Completly forgettable lyrics. Banal riffs. The chorus will probably sound decent live which is clearly all the song was written for.

    Compliance is better. The chorus is great and instrumentally I do like it overall. The lyrics are just more boring, eye-rollingly cheesy, vaguely conspiratorial Museness. I mean, I get it, that's Muse, in for a penny and in for a pound at this point, but believe it or not their lyrics used to be a lot better or at least more cryptic than this. And that Knight Rider bit...come on, it's just lazy. Literally just there for people to say, "look it's Knight Rider", just like that terrible Drill Sergeant bit in Psycho. Also this song and especially the music video has a whiff of the ol' anti-vax about them which from Matt is completely unsurprising but still disappointing.

    So yeah, not that optimistic about this one.

    • Like 1
  3. It was pretty widely held during the busier days of this board that Pink Ego Box was the worst Muse song. I thought so too.

    I listened to it today and...no way is it the worst. It's kinda weird and spacious, sure, that weird jumpy rhythm...it's kinda all over the place. "My heart is feeling pain" might win an award for worst delivery of a line in a Muse song. But the guitars really crunch when the chorus comes in. The theme of the song and the straightforward way it's conveyed...strikes me as weirdly prophetic now that PC music etc. is a thing. It's earnest and gets that 'early Muse pass' for me, it sounds immature but passionate. It's not bland. Not great, maybe not even good, but they've made worse.

  4. briirrr bwom bwom bwom. briiirr bwom bwom bwom break it to me brirr bwom bwom bwom bwom brirr bwom bwom bwom don't chase it up and don't beataroundthebush and no dunununu and don't dodododo just keep it inside and make another thing no dumbing it down don't fake it just break it to me brirr bwom bwom bwom etc

  5. T2L. Of all their albums it just seems the most aimless by far. I kinda like Madness, Big Freeze and Isolated System but only Panic Station and Animals come close to being among my favourites. Survival and Unsustainable strike me as desperate. The rest is so boring.

  6. I've been to 3 Muse gigs.

     

    Showbiz

     

    Unintended

    Uno

     

    Origin of Symmetry

     

    New Born x2

    Feeling Good x2

    Space Dementia

    Bliss

    Plug In Baby x3

    Hyper Music

     

    Absolution

     

    Hysteria x3

    Butterflies & Hurricanes

    Time is Running Out x3

    Stockholm Syndrome x3

     

    Black Holes and Revelations

     

    Map of the Problematique x2

    Supermassive Black Hole x3

    Invincible

    Take A Bow

    Starlight x2

    Knights of Cydonia x3

     

    The Resistance

     

    Uprising x2

    Resistance

    Guiding Light

    United States of Eurasia

    Undisclosed Desires

    Unnatural Selection x2

    Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture)

     

    The 2nd Law

     

    Animals

     

    Drones

     

    Psycho (debut performance)

    Reapers (debut performance)

     

    Non-Album

     

    Agitated

    Dead Star

    Fury

    Nishe

    “Drum and Bass”

    “Helsinki Jam”

  7. I find Reapers quite unlistenable, sadly. The verses are so boring. The production throughout is weird. The solo is annoying until the last bit. The outro is underwhelming.

     

    The Handler is great but the bridge could have more going on.

     

    Aw, that's a shame. I came away from that song thinking I wouldn't mind if Muse made a whole album in that classic rock vein. The style just seemed to fit their over-the-top style and technical ability like a glove.

  8. That's pretty bad but sadly not an isolated case. A lot of Japanese young people do not recognise the Nazi swastika and thus did not really understand when people started getting offended when confusing it with this otherwise unrelated symbol - 卍. Makes more sense since Japan was with the Axis powers but...uh you'd think they of all people wouldn't want the same mistakes of WW2 happening again...

  9. Muse are always given this 'progressive' label as if to elevate them above typical rock, alternative rock and pop. Structurally CE is the only song I can really say is progressive to me...well, the only good one. The Globalist is probably progressive too, I dunno.

     

    I think the 'progressive' thing has persisted mostly from Muse being unafraid of writing songs about conspiracy, apocalypse, atheism, etc. - more esoteric and highbrow topics than a lot of rock tackles. But the examination of those topics is always surface level; any deep examination or storytelling is sacrificed for the sake of brevity and accessibility. They write pop and rock songs with occasionally eccentric instrumentation, and showy but not overly technical musical ability on display.

     

    And Muse have just got away with it and get called progressive to this day. It's genius really. They got to be a catchy pop band and an edgy progressive one at the same time. What a steal!

  10. That aspect has been pretty clear ever since they toured with U2, a band that is obsessed with being the Biggest, the Most Relevant and Highest Selling band out there with the Biggest Live Shows. Muse aren't completely out of touch and dated like they are (yet), but they've certainly persisted in what was once referred to as something like 'fist-clenching inclusiveness'.

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