Muse in My Rock Mag

[Victoroy]

If no PiB, then does that mean no Balloons? That's the only reason I go to Muse concerts...Maybe balloons will drop during Guiding Light. Matt's way of "trying" to get us to like that song more.

[SoberBaby]

I feel as though they could extend their setlists just to cater to both kinds of fans. It'll make everybody happy, and new fans will get to experience older songs for the greater good. I also understand how doing a whole concert can drain you night after night, but still. Their seasoned by now, I say they extend them so we can have at least maybe 2 hours of Muse live.

[Riveon]

I'd be proper pissed off if there were no b-sides. They've recorded more than the songs appearing on the album, so surely some of those can appear on singles? And we know from the BH&R days they'd written tons of songs that didn't make it even to b-side level - why not one day release them as some sort of EP?

 

I'd already come to terms that the next tours will hardly feature any older songs, because they'd pretty much gone down that route throughout the Resistance tour (R&L being the exceptions!), but singles without b-sides is just wrong, lol!

Even the original organic/band version of Follow me would be fine.

[HannahG123]

If no PiB, then does that mean no Balloons? That's the only reason I go to Muse concerts...Maybe balloons will drop during Guiding Light. Matt's way of "trying" to get us to like that song more.

 

Why would you suggest such a horrible thing

[jbyun04]

If they get Skrillex, Nero or Knife Party to remix one of their songs and they put that on a single then I will be happy. Cue the haters!!

 

Much as I like DIOYY and Tiesto, those remixes of Uprising and Resistance weren't the best.

 

I'm actually excited Nero worked with Muse on Follow Me. Can't wait to hear it.

[-FutureStar-]

If they get Skrillex, Nero or Knife Party to remix one of their songs and they put that on a single then I will be happy. Cue the haters!!

 

Much as I like DIOYY and Tiesto, those remixes of Uprising and Resistance weren't the best.

 

I'm actually excited Nero worked with Muse on Follow Me. Can't wait to hear it.

 

+1 Nero are fantastic. Knife Party would do a good job too!

[Beibi]

I'm pretty sure they said in an interview that they shot down songs that they didn't think were good enough early on in the writing process, which I assume means they never got recorded (and, if they did, only in a crude demo form).

 

I think Dom or Chris mentioned this in a recent interview.

 

They only recorded the songs that ended up being on the album for TR, there were none leftover from that so it wouldn't be surprising that the same has happened this time.

 

However, I do agree that we should be the ones to judge whether a song is good or bad. Besides, if it's a b-side, I don't see why they're so self-conscious about it anyway.

 

Why? it's their work, if they think a song it's not good enough to be on the album, our opinion is irrelevant.

[Jobby]

Why? it's their work, if they think a song it's not good enough to be on the album, our opinion is irrelevant.

 

Because I think they're overly-critical of their work. Soaked was fantastic and they never even released that.

 

What I mean is, of all the songs that they throw away because they can't see any use for them, there are probably at least a couple that fans could potentially love. I don't see where the problem for them is in just recording a couple of these songs as b-sides. That way, if the songs are bad, they're only b-sides so that's okay and if the songs are good, it's a bonus for the fans.

[Beibi]

Soaked was shit. In my opinion, of course.

[kueller]

I think the point is they don't see a need for b-sides anymore. I'm pretty sure they said that old b-sides were just them throwing songs out there for promotion, and they're big enough to not be recording songs that they don't really have much of a need for.

[Bumpypotato]

They never seemed to like B-sides, honestly.

[serpentsatellite]

Maybe because B-Sides are, a lot of the times, sub-par songs slapped onto singles to drive sales of said single to fans that already own the album/song?

Muse has had some real great B-sides, but it's definately not always the trend, and the most likely people to buy a single FOR a B-side is a fan that already owns the album.

Speculation, purely, because I always hated when I had to buy 4-5 expensive singles from bands for crappy B-Sides.

 

Although, Muse have stated they did away with songs purely for international releases, like the Japanese versions, because they thought that was a shitty thing to do.

THOSE songs were all amazing...

[hyper_chondriac_muser]

Maybe because B-Sides are, a lot of the times, sub-par songs slapped onto singles to drive sales of said single to fans that already own the album/song?

Muse has had some real great B-sides, but it's definately not always the trend, and the most likely people to buy a single FOR a B-side is a fan that already owns the album.

Speculation, purely, because I always hated when I had to buy 4-5 expensive singles from bands for crappy B-Sides.

 

Although, Muse have stated they did away with songs purely for international releases, like the Japanese versions, because they thought that was a shitty thing to do.

THOSE songs were all amazing...

 

It's just ironic, though, for a band who have given us plenty of great b-sides to suddenly think the concept isn't worth pursuing. B-sides are essentially one of the laziest thing a band can do cos it's pretty much just all your leftovers put onto singles . I'm sure it wouldn't take that much time and effort to record a handful of tracks as 'final' versions (I refuse to believe they didn't at least create demos of other non-album tracks).

 

Maybe I'm being too sentimental in thinking they might have considered just doing it to give fans new material to enjoy rather than thinking of the commercial gain alone. Plus, as a collector, it's another blow because the physical single releases (if they even bother with them!) won't have anything special on them: just a shitty remix, lol.

[Travisx2112]

They never seemed to like B-sides, honestly.

 

If they didn't like them, we wouldn't have 30+.

[JakeLulz]

B-sides exist as a result of a band experimenting with a tonne of ideas because they don't know what will sound good in the end product, or they're not sure if any will sound good, or which will sound the best, or work the best, or work at all, or whatever, so in the end they cut the sub par songs that have already been recorded(to some extent) from the final tracklist.

 

The correlation I'm noticing is that in the past when Muse have had them(b-sides) they have had somebody else produce their album, somebody else help drive their early undeveloped ideas and make them something special, somebody else co-make their decisions, as a result of this they produce more content than they need because they are to some extent, creating their album to somebody else's vision and additionally I imagine, creating a cushion for themselves so in the end they have a pool of content to choose from. I feel like they didn't have any real clear vision for these album when they started them.

 

They don't just make them for fun or not make them because they're lazy. There were none for TR because they self produced the album and had a very specific vision for it(the album), and what songs/song types/sounds it would consist of. They made 11 songs and they called it a day, they knew exactly what they wanted. There were no b-sides because I am assuming early on, they spent the time defining exactly what they wanted from their album and how it would sound, and as a result, did not produce the extra content.

 

I feel at this stage, Muse as musicians feel and to an extent show, that they are experienced and confident enough to produce an album from concept to final product without needless experimentation and going down counter-productive song writing paths when they know exactly what they want in the first place.

 

I haven't followed any of the stuff here on the board regarding the new album, but I am going to assume they self produced it again, they knew what they wanted and they made it. The remixes are just filler because the b-sides don't exist and they/their management want to make the singles more valuable, I don't think they prefer them - maybe they have no preference at all. I feel like if they had b-sides they would give them to us.

 

On a closing note, I like b-sides, some of my favourite songs are b-sides but some of the arguments here don't make much sense to me at all and I don't think the band think about it as much some of the people analysing their thinking do. They're just making an album.