I just did. Five minutes ago. Easy.

Oh damn, completely forgot some of those. The part of my brain reserved for Muse facts is not what it once was.

It's pretty common to lower the key simply to keep the voice from getting destroyed. It's one thing to be able to sing a difficult song. it's another to be able to do it along with 15-20 other songs several nights a week when your sleep is irregular. He also has a few other strategies for keeping the voice rather than just lowering the key. In Propaganda, Feeling Good, Explorers, Resistance and others he simply replaces the few high chest notes that the songs have with falsetto. And in songs like Dead Inside and Survival, he lowers the specific high notes to another note in the same key. And then ofc there's always the strategy of Big Freeze.

To answer the question about half a step down first (since it's easier): Cave in 2009-2010, Falling Down in 2012, Showbiz since 2017, Muscle Museum since 2015, Sing For Absolution from late 2003 and onward, Starlight had a very small number of performances in the original key before being lowered, Invincible was lowered in 2008 iirc, I have a feeling that Exo-Politics was lowered but can be wrong on that. *deep breath* No lowered songs on The Resistance, then Madness on T2L and honestly after that is when I stopped paying attention to Muse's normal tours. Regarding tempo, a bunch of their songs changed tempo in their early career before everything was set to a metronome. New Born used to be the most popular example of fans whining because of the lowered tempo live. In reality they just started playing it at the same speed as the studio version. It's just that they had a period of a few years when they played it faster.

Simulation Theory was my favourite album since...probably BH&R, but what they did with synths felt less like them perfecting the sound they had dabbled in before and more like just leaving it behind to copy a particular synthwave sound. I don't see much continuity other than just "they used synths". "Synths should augment the piano and guitar pieces, not replace them" is a pretty strange take though. There's plenty of artists who simply make synth music with the synth as the main instrument.

Absolutely. Sadly, I don't really like that the piano has turned into either a background instrument or just an instrument for ballads. The Void (acoustic, which I still can't believe didn't get strings. Criminal) and Isolated System are both great though.

The Void does it for me

No they don't? The old version is still up on youtube, and the bass definitely kicks in half a second earlier on the early version (which shouldn't be a surprise really, since it so clearly cuts off the beginning beat of the song)

Nah at least Something Human and Dig Down started as the stripped down versions. Matt said as much around the time of the album release. I remember because it was such a dumb thing. They began the writing process by talking about how great it was to be able to work on individual songs without having to consider the rest of the album. They also talked about the freedom it gave them to go in any direction they felt like with every song. Then when the album was released Matt revealed that they wrote the gospel version of Dig Down and thought it didn't fit with the other songs they had written so they rewrote it all to fit into a synthwave/electronic rock sound. So dumb, and so Muse. And we can just look at the OoS remix to see that their attitude to songwriting has changed. They specifically said that they removed the strings because it was a bit too much and the songs became too all over the place and overpacked. Same thing with songs on Absolution. Abso also had songs like Blackout, Endlessly and Ruled By Secrecy. None of which have any over the top ridiculousness that basically every Muse ballad has these days.

One song doesn't really disprove what we're theorizing. Especially not when that same album contains songs like Something Human, Dig Down and The Void which all had more stripped down original versions. And it's not like this is a new thing. In my opinion, Muse have put unnecessary additions to songs for years now. Still think the backing vocals and guitar solo in Madness goes completely against the vibe of the rest of the song.

I didn't notice any volume issues with New Born, but what I am noticing is a super high pitched noise. Like, not an instrument but pulsating overtones that are really fucking with my ears. Very noticeable during the outro riff. And about this album as a whole, it's so clearly not "the way it was always supposed to sound" or whatever Matt said. They've literally just tacked on every single thing that was previously left out due to...actual music-related reasons. I know I might be reading into it too much but it really solidifies my biggest issue with Muse these days. They simply don't understand subtlety or "sometimes less is more" anymore.

Frankly, you seem to be the only one unwilling to accept other people's opinions. Jobby hasn't questioned anyone other than Matt himself, because what Matt's saying now is directly contradicting what he said back when the album was released.

The opening drums are weak as fuck, but other than that, I like a lot about the new mix. It's not gonna replace the original, but it's fun to hear certain parts more clearly. It's interesting how they back in 2001 went "nah, the strings are too much" but in 2021 it's "yeah, put those strings back in". Very telling of the difference between 2001 and 2021 Muse.

Oh I would absolutely love a cover of Ewan McGregor's Endlessly.

Just out of interest, which song would people have liked him to play on Jeff's guitar? FAWY would have been my pick I think

Where did you hear about this song? At least one line is from Glorious.

We have them already but interestingly enough it's a new video edit, probably because it was done by the people at TCT as opposed to Tom Kirk.

“People endlessly buying crap they don’t need”... Anyway. Here’s cryptokitties Top comment on reddit.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5uCrNtzivZvi0ckHwLaPBZ?si=CF5FtDYiRHSfqSwGAOk76w here you go EDIT: Honestly didn't even notice this was almost a year old. It just showed up as the latest post to me. Man this forum is dead.

Sadly not the case. The 1 minute version IS the full version, and the video and Dom's drumming are both for Reach Out I'll Be There

I think he's saying he's putting more power into it than necessary. Anyway I don't think it's weird that he's releasing it under his own name. We all know he's the main songwriter, and here we have a version with just the piano and vocals, both written by Matt. I doubt Dom or Chris have any issue with it.

Honestly I was never a big fan of Unintended to begin with. I like the instrumentation here, but Matt's soft voice is very hit and miss these days. The cover of We'll Meet Again that he uploaded works so, so well and I'm very excited for a full cover. This however? Probably won't really listen to it again, much like Tomorrow's World.

Just gonna link this as well for anyone who missed the first teaser https://www.instagram.com/p/B6jpZ07DMoc/

huh? No it hasn't. It literally says "Joined Mar 4, 2020" on the channel. The Topic channel that Pray is on is an auto-generated thing by Youtube.

Yep. It's on Spotify, Youtube, Itunes etc