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Bohemian-Cygnus-Running-Out

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Everything posted by Bohemian-Cygnus-Running-Out

  1. I am still just enjoying this album once every few weeks or so. It's great, but I'm not in the "constantly crawling back for more" stage.
  2. At long long last... I can finally share my very exciting personal news that at long long long last, I will finally get to see Muse live! My dad and I have been big fans since The 2nd Law came out, and have been aching to see them live nearly as long, but every tour between then and now there's been some reason why we couldn't go. Not this time. We've got fantastic seats to see them in Chicago as they open the North American leg of their tour. I can hardly believe it's true... They can play anything they want, I don't care. Guiding Light, Save Me, Dig Down, Drones, Aftermath, Sober! ... anything. I will be happy.
  3. Here's my first go at it. To be clear, I don't think this is how they actually went about making the album, nor do I think there's really perfect comparisons for every track here, but I do think there are a lot of lines that can be drawn here. 1. Will Of The People = Uprising (the stomping, swinging, audience participation, blues inflected battle cry opener) 2. Compliance = Undisclosed Desires (the highly synthetic straight up pop song) 3. Liberation = I'm pretty stumped on this one actually, the closest thing it resembles is USOE, but that certainly wasn't a hit, right? I guess I could just call it "obligatory Queen song" and reference Madness since that *was* a hit and was very inspired by a particular Queen song (especially the guitar solo) 4. Won't Stand Down = Supermassive Black Hole? (not really a great comparison, but it does have the unclean vox in the hook where it gets way heavier than the verses, which are rather poppy, though this one lacks funk and adds more metal) 5. Ghosts (How Can I Move On) = Something Human (heartfelt love ballad that can be done solo, by Matt with one other instrument) 6. You Make Me Feel Like It's Halloween = Time Is Running Out (I guess this is mostly lyrical, Matt is in a dark place dealing with some kind of toxic relationship, and the music is dark and moody but really catchy and in a pop song structure) 7. Kill Or Be Killed = Stockholm Syndrome (iconic elastic guitar riff, super heavy all the way through and somehow getting heavier as it reaches the chorus where Matt is shouting over the top) 8. Verona = Starlight (the not quite obligatory Coldplay type song, though sonically it's closer to Guiding Light and Invincible, and oddly reminds me of Save Me) 9. Euphoria = Plug In Baby (yeah I know, no big riff and this one is waaay more upbeat and peppy than PIB, but I think the tempos and the energy levels are actually pretty similar, the chorus has a similar feeling of catharsis, and honestly how would this not have ended up on a Muse greatest hits?) 10. We Are F*cking F*cked = Knights Of Cydonia (basically a whole different mood at the start of the song than at the end, with a little hint of an a cappella midsection via those big vocal harmony stabs before the ending riff breaks in, a song about the end of the world no less, and that ending riff definitely bears some similarity to the one in Knights) Definitely some glaring omissions (Hysteria, Muscle Museum, Thought Contagion, Psycho, Dig Down, Resistance, Butterflies & Hurricanes, Map Of The Problematique, Sunburn, Feeling Good, Panic Station... I know there's more), but hey, Muse definitely have more than ten "greatest hits" worthy tracks (especially if you start counting fan favorites that aren't really that popular outside of Muse circles... cough cough Citizen Erased). But anyway I think this should be a fun game for anyone else who wants to try. I definitely had a hard time pinning a few of these down, while others came to me instantaneously.
  4. Back when Matt was first introducing the album in interviews, I remember him saying part of the impetus for this album's creation was the record label approaching them about making a Greatest Hits album, and the band were emphatically against that idea. So instead of making a greatest hits, they pitched this album like a proverbial best of, but all the songs are new instead of old. I believe Matt's comparison was Compliance being the best "pop Muse" song they'd ever done, or KOBK being the best "metal Muse" song they'd ever done (actually he might've said that about WSD, but I don't really see how it's fully in that camp with those very poppy verses). Anyway, I kinda doubt they approached writing and recording on a perfect song for song comparison basis, but I think it would be a fun game to play! So, if you had to guess, what was the ten song Greatest Hits album tracklist the record execs pitched to the band that they then took and made into WOTP instead? Or if it makes more sense to think of it this way, what past Muse hit does each song on WOTP correspond to?
  5. Is it so hard to accept that Muse just make the music they want to, and they don't always want to make the kind of stuff they made on the early albums? I imagine if most rock bands discovered they had the ability to write killer stadium anthems and massive power ballads and tour those to play for millions of people around the world, they'd probably go for it. The opportunity may not strike again, and that experience sounds like it's worth having, plus the music is fun to play and to listen to.
  6. Man, I've gotta give it to em. The riff to the verses of We're F****** F***** sounds like a long lost B-side from Showbiz / OoS that absolutely should have been on the album. The stop start thing reminds me of Citizen Erased, and Goodbye Sky Harbor by Jimmy Eat World if you know that tune.
  7. Gotta love that feeling when the new album starts sinking in and becomes less disorienting. This is the most fun Muse have ever had on record.
  8. I must be old. When Drones came out the first thing anyone talked about was how the Psycho riff was actually the famous 0305030 riff they’d been jamming live for years. A lot of people kinda didn’t like how the riff was recycled iirc.
  9. Actually the whole song is. Oh my goodness, aside from the gloriously campy outro this song could absolutely have been off of Hullaballoo.
  10. Man, the verse melody on Kill Or Be Killed reminds me of Audioslave and Chris Cornell’s very off kilter melodies, but then it seamlessly evolves into something only Matt could write. This song is brilliant.
  11. Ghosts is so lovely. It feels like a song out of a Disney musical movie, but compared to Muse’s usual operatics it feels totally earnest for them.
  12. Also the end of Liberation with the vocal harmonies is absolutely an intentional callback to the end of New Born. If the section had been extended and melodically fleshed out, I could totally hear Matt calling it the “new Citizen Erased.” It’s not that, lol, but it’s great in its own way.
  13. Liberation feels like it would fit perfectly on the new Panic At The Disco album, which is my current album of the year. Needless to say I LOOOOOVVE this song!
  14. Dang, I love this evaluation. Also I said in my previous post I wouldn't have a lot to say about this album, but I just monologued to myself about it and it's place in their catalogue and what it means for about 30 minutes still only after one listen so..... maybe I do, lol. I'm so happy reading back through some of these comments to see so many of y'all are actually digging this one. I was expecting groans and hatred like has been the norm for years, but it seems many are really enjoying this more than they expected they could. To me, this feels like a self titled album. The fact that it isn't I think is either a holdover of Matt's love of nerdy/political concepts or a middle finger to the idea of ever just self titling an album.
  15. I have not been on since May when the title track leaked. That was intentional. I hadn't heard any songs besides WSD and Compliance from March until just now, as I just finished my first listen through of the album! (I waited the week it took for my sick deluxe vinyl package to arrive) This is not an album I'm likely to have a lot to say about... but that is NOT directly proportional to its quality. I love it! I love every song! I actually couldn't say that about Simulation Theory and The 2nd Law when I first heard them, and I'm still a bit iffy on a couple tracks from both of those. By shortening the runtime and keeping things at a perfectly balanced 10 songs, Muse managed to pack all of their good ideas into a small enough package that none of their bad ones outweigh the good on any song. That's fantastic! It's absolutely not a record that's going to change anyone's minds about whether or not they like Muse or whether or not they still like Muse. If this record doesn't do it for you, I imagine much of the last three records was also not really your style either. I suppose what differentiates WOTP is that every song feels like part of a unified statement, nothing feels out of place sonically or stylistically, which is honestly kinda new for Muse. They've been doing the Queen thing of having completely different sounding tracks sonically and stylistically on the same album for a looooong time now. That's not to say there's no variety here, but it's not as hot and cold as Simulation Theory, which will jump from the fun riff rock of Pressure to whatever the heck Propaganda is to the RATM meets Justin Timberlake of Break It To Me in as many songs. There are obvious diversions into their ballad stuff, their metal stuff, their pop stuff, but it all feels like colors in the same palate this time around. It's a very consistent listen start to finish. A few songs stand out as immediate favorites, Kill Or Be Killed and Liberation for sure, but nothing really gets less than a B+ from me. Anyway I'm sure everybody is of the exact same opinion as me on this totally not divisive record from this completely agreed upon band in this totally peaceful and not over-critical forum environment. 🙃 ....oh and I am NOT watching any of my usual music YouTubers reviews for this. I can already tell from the thumbnails and titles exactly how its doing with the Fantanos of the world, lol.
  16. Return of guitars? Where have you heard that? I've heard this album is supposed to be "Muse greatest hits except with newly written/recorded songs," which would imply only a fraction of the album will be guitar based as that is only a fraction of what they would have on a greatest hits album. It should range from PiB to UD.
  17. But like, ST would be soooo short without them, lol. Maybe just use the alternate reality versions on the album proper? idk Also odds of me going to see Muse for the first time at a festival are pretty slim. Way more expensive tickets to see likely a shorter set with a smaller chance of deep cuts and a higher chance of just all the big pop songs... which I course I would lap up but like... something more from the early years than Plug In Baby, Hysteria, and the occasional Time Is Running Out is what I really crave (despite TiRO still standing as my all time favorite Muse song no less).
  18. That's okay, given what we know about the album, not liking one songs probably won't have much effect on how you feel about the rest.
  19. Seems legit to me! But I swore after I heard compliance and saw how short the album would be not to listen to anymore pre album singles. So... whenever the next one comes out I'm probably not visiting around here till the album drops. Wanna keep it fresh.
  20. That was a great read! Somehow I had it in my head Matt was just living in LA nowadays because that's just where he wanted to be, and I had totally disregarded the fact that he may have wanted to go back to England since the virus hit and been unable. He sounds really down to earth in the interview, and it's really interesting to see a bit of insight into how real world events get fantasticized a bit (or a lot) when Matt's using them as inspiration. Also also, any further fears about this being some anti vax anti mask record I think have been thoroughly quashed considering he was writing these songs around the January 6th US Capitol storm. He's set a pretty loft goal for himself as a lyricist: try to write about both the good and the bad "the will of the people." The virtues of democracy paired with the evils of mob mentality and cults of personality. For a guy not usually known for having a lot of nuance in his pen... let's see how this goes. I'll enjoy it regardless of course. This album already has Compliance on it, which is one of the best pop songs Muse have ever done.
  21. Why oh why can't they bring these gigs to the US? Ugh, I'm so jealous! Space Dementia?! New Born?! CE! Next thing you tell me they'll be busting out USoE+CD.
  22. Yeah! It's my favorite 80s Queen song. I have the opening choir as my alarm and the beat drop as my ringtone.
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