serpentsatellite
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Everything posted by serpentsatellite
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"Sometimes your anxieties about the world or your anxieties about the world of the future can be lessened by turning the news off and turning your phone off for a few days. You then realize that everything is fine!" - Matt Bellamy, Rolling Stone, a couple days ago So, that's pretty much EXACTLY what he's saying. Minus the "pretty much" part. He makes a Holocaust lyric in a silly song, telling people how silly it is to get worked up about current events. Maybe "joke" wasn't the right word, but what it really is (other than fucking stupid) defies being summed up in a short word or phrase (other than fucking stupid.) Why is this ironic? I've had all sorts of songs that I find fucking terrible stuck in my head over my lifetime. Being catchy doesn't make it good, or even enjoyable. Unless you think jingles for soda and kids' shoes are examples of good music. Honestly, just so much this. The fringe side of one political group's "policies" are essentially human rights violations. This isn't a debate about fiscal policy, it's about a group of people who aren't shy to advocate for throwing brown people out of the country, blocking people of certain religions from even visiting the country, allowing stores to refuse to serve you based on sexual orientation, refusing basic healthcare needs to women, escalating kids' schools to warzone levels, and on, and on and on. It DESERVES outrage. People saying you can't live with a constant sense of outrage... but there's a ton of people who can't live their lives if people aren't constantly outraged and pushing for basic civil rights. Almost ALL of this seems exclusive to Fox News, and places like it. I've never even seen other mainstream media denigrate Christianity; the "attack on Christians" is more likely to be spread on Fox and for how often far right sources bring it up, it's startlingly lacking in other media, even "left leaning" stuff. The only one that legitimately comes up in other major news sources is the gun ownership issues, and it's about damn time we have that conversation when our children are constantly being gunned down at school. That's not fearmongering, that's the reality of HUNDREDS of people being shot and killed at school. Of kids going through "active shooter" drills at school. That's fucking insane. And none of it, NOTHING will improve by closing our eyes to it.
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TLA said it better than I ever could, but I'd like to add that "not paying attention" and pretending everything is fine, or will be fine, is EXACTLY what got the US in this situation in the first place. We didn't pay attention, and we allowed people with fringe beliefs to seize power. If anything, being aware of what's going in is what we SHOULD be doing. We should be getting involved, getting upset, and trying to fix the world around us. And it's absolutely not some sort of dumb jealousy against the rich... Unless one truly believes on the rich and famous should be able to live safe, full lives. Case in point, a song themed around "shut off the news and be happy" also throwing out a Holocaust joke? Seriously? That sounds like some news that was pretty important to pay attention to...
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I do think the RS article points to the song being about ALL news being bad. Both sides being "monsters." And then the "final solution" line would be a sarcastic nod to Godwin's Law. Which is still just an awful, naïve message; "just close your eyes and nothing's wrong! As long as you're super rich." It's also super rich coming from a guy who spent most of his career peddling conspiracy theory tinged songs about aliens, shadow governments, and mind control. The last album was an entire concept album based around conspiracy theory, ffs. I'm honestly glad I thought the song was poor, and didn't have to go through what I did with Drones, where I really truly loved so much of it, but the lyrics rendered it unlistenable for me.
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So, no rarities for the US ever, confirmed.
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I felt dismissive of Matt, and others ', conspiracy theory "phase" too. Until it was too late, and became apparent there were enough people swayed by those lunatic beliefs to create chaos and actually bring harm to others on a massive scale. Now it's not so funny. On a different topic, is Matt a werewolf at the end of the video? And why?
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That's really the issue, whatever Matt's intent or knowledge of the situation was. Matt's gotten in bed with the alt-right before it was mainstream, and he hasn't exactly done much to distance himself from it. The Globalist was likely just Matt's having read Rushdie, but nationalism has taken a dark turn in the world right now, and "globalist" is up there in the alt-right lexicon with "cuck" and "snowflake." With a very racist and anti-Semitic meaning most of the time. Can I reasonably believe Matt's made the same mistake twice, or am I projecting what I want to believe onto the situation? The song is too damn vague. And the irony of "fake news" has always been that the right propagated most of it (or Russian propaganda, if you want) but is the same team crying out that mainstream news is "fake" so the "false beliefs" line in the song easily fits with the interpretation of being sung from EITHER side, but the "fake news" phrase has mainly been adopted by the far right.
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I did find that funny. So, when Matt (recently) talked about this track being "quite heavy".... he was referring to an older version they didn't record?
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The thing is, it shouldn't matter at all. A band should be able to give 100% no matter what, and I've seen plenty of bands give amazing performances to dead crowds (mostly opening acts, tbf.) And the band needs to realize that crowd engagement is largely in their hands. Muse got off easy for the early part of their career in the UK/Europe having gotten massively popular relatively quickly, but when they need to sell themselves to crowds, like the smaller US gigs, not saying a word to the crowd, or really looking at them at all, isn't going to cut it. 30STM does a really good job of being engaging, but they go off the deep end and use it to avoid actually putting on a performance for most of the gig. I can see Muse trying to adopt the stuff that band does, while still not really "getting" why it works, unfortunately. Then again, I really, really loved 30STM's early work, and especially during the s/t era they were basically Muse with literally no interaction with the crowd whatsoever. And I loved those gigs a ton. Muse adopting the crappier aspects of current 30STM is doubly sour for me.
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While I'm fully onboard with the idea of social media having a dangerous influence on the world, and especially politics, the idea that you can "turn off the news and everything is actually ok" is about the most naïve thing I've ever heard. And a big part of the reason the US is in the position it is right now.
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I assume it's the album title, but there's a company called Flex that's also attempting AR headsets. He did mention it as a way to incorporate the fact that people are always on their phones at gigs. The logistics of it though are absolutely mindboggling, especially considering they're already charging $100+ for gigs with little production and cutting back majorly on the areas they're playing in.
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I think there's some pieces in there that could have made a good song, but it just goes absolutely nowhere. It's not a long song, and you're bored of it before the halfway mark; you've heard it all. Feels extremely unfinished.
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So, the Thriller thing...
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Man, they really missed an opportunity to use the hand lightning with The Dark Side. Also going to be a bit of a lol if the band that write all those anti-corporate songs does the traditional "iTunes/etc exclusive bonus tracks" bs.
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Is Matt going to stop sucking at it overnight, though? I think it would just be awkward as fuck at this point. Everything I've ever seen him say to the crowd has either been mumbled nonsense, or a downright insult. And I've seen the guitarless Uprising three times, that was supposed to help with "crowd interaction" and he stared at his feet and stood in place one time, and fondled his boobs the other two.
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I totally agree with this, of course, because to me seeing a good show and good songs is way more important than crowd engagement, but it's hard to argue that it's pretty obvious Matt doesn't agree with all the bitching about crowds he does. Which has always been ironic because he never DOES anything to engage the crowd, and all the "woahs" in the world isn't going to help if he doesn't.
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I'm also not surprised to see them aping 30STM after the tour together. Maybe hoping some of that sing a long crap will get the crowd more engaged, since it certainly works for Mars. (And Bellamy's been itching to ditch the guitar more and more for some reason.)
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That "final solution" line is a bit shocking, in that, as others have said, HOW many people worked on this song and no one mentioned it as a problem??? Then again, that Kylie Jenner Pepsi ad and that H&M ad made it to publication... Unfortunately, the lyrics are so vague, that it's actually tough to be sure that Matt didn't know exactly what it meant, and to interpret the context that he's using it in. Alongside lyrics about "false beliefs" "wipe the slate" and knowing that he's written a negative song about "globalists" I'm not entirely comfortable with it. This isn't really an issue of "everyone being offended;" it's referencing a horrific genocide in a manner that's not just irreverent, but way too open to interpretation. And it's just plain and simple not a good climate for it right now.
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I think it was more just a knock on Muse using the aesthetics, no? Especially seeing as the song itself will likely have little to nothing to do with the genre. Dig Down used the same types of imagery.
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The T2L cover wasn't commissioned, it was directly taken from an actual study that Matt found online. Really interesting stuff actually, but no idea what it had to do with T2L other than Matt's fondness for incorporating science/politics into his more recent works without getting the point across well. Hearing they'd brought on Mahurin for the Drones art was an eyeroll from the second I heard it. That guy's been terrible since always. Of course, again, his staggeringly immature themes fit the Drones lyrics pretty damn well.
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Thought Contagion is the name of a book about the science behind how memes spread, so 99.9% likely this song is about fake news or similar current event. And at least the lightning/lasers aren't coming out of Matt's dick this time, so I consider this picture a positive.
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Except Matt has LITERALLY admitted to this, at least a couple of times that I can remember. And the dumbed down lyrics are actually a big part of what makes their output more and more difficult for me to enjoy. I don't give two shits if a song is heavy, or what genre it's in, I just want it to not sound like a grade schooler's book report on Info Wars. And possibly not sound like it's sampling Madness.
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I think he's likely serious, but doesn't quite understand what made the songs connect with fans in the first place anymore.
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I can 100% confirm that if you don't get the xmas emails you don't get any special presale codes that aren't on the Members page, and if they do the "legacy" ticket lottery again for future gigs, you don't get that, either. It's worth being concerned over if you're thinking about future gigs. And I never found any way to fix it, or anyone to contact about it.
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I'll look for the title when I get home, but I fairly recently read part of a book that involved a character with a speech impediment, and the dialog was phonetically spelled out. It was a mess, and more than vaguely offensive, but I distinctly remember it because of "nishe." I will admit I Googled it after that, and found other cases of it used that way, especially making fun of people with braces or retainers. *edit: a quick pull up on my phone found this: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FangThpeak
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Muse Collecting Discussion and Questions
serpentsatellite replied to Niall's topic in Songs & Releases
What size are the shirts? I know people looking.