Drones Album Discussion Thread

[s3ker]

There's nothing in Dead Inside that makes me feel like it's a "moment into daring areas"... What makes you say that? To me it's yet again a generic 80s Prince/Depeche Mode almost-rip off, with maybe boring (but decent) music and a great vocal performance by Matt. Obviously fair enough if you really like it, I just struggle to see what is daring about it.

 

If you reread my post, you'll notice I wrote " and if this record had stemmed from these two moments into daring areas". Dead Inside ain't a daring song for sure, just a pop tune that I enjoy quite a lot. What I meant was that I believe DI/The Handler would've made a great front for the album (single-wise, generating hype and establishing the pop / rock duality), and that from there they could've went down the rabbit hole and expand on the themes around Drones in a much less superficial way (both in music and lyrics) as they did in a few chunks of the album. Hope that clears it out

Edited March 9, 2017 by s3ker

[frozenbanana]

Another problem with this album (and Muse generally post Absolution) is that they seem to have lost the ability to make genuinely dark and chilling songs.

 

And this time they seemed to suggest those songs were back. Fairly sure it came up in the interviews all the time before Drones was released about how it was going to be about abandonment, despair and rage against the system, before the eventual defection, etc. blah blah blah. Then we got all the track names - "Dead Inside", "Psycho", "Mercy", "The Handler", "Revolt" - and they backed that up.

 

And then the songs come out and there's no depth to them whatsoever. Dead Inside is almost poppy, with kinda corny lyrics in places (as discussed). Psycho's chorus is "your ass belongs to me now". The less said about Mercy the better (but "tell me why the men in cloaks always have to bring me down!!" - those darn men in cloaks, eh?). Reapers ("babe") and The Handler are sort of saved by their heaviness, and the post-chorus vocal thing in The Hander is the closest Muse come to sounding a little unsettling (not sure that's the right word, but anyway) on the album. But then Defector is just Queenish and Revolt sounds like something out of a cheesy musical, and both have utterly vapid lyrics.

 

Drones ends up being equivalent - musically and lyrically - of what I imagine a Michael Bay movie about warfare would be. All big bangs and no subtlety and no emotional heft whatsoever.

 

But they used to be able to do this stuff properly! The erosive atmosphere of Hyper Chondriac Music, the taut claustrophobia of Dead Star (or Hysteria), the eeriness of Ruled by Secrecy, etc. It's a shame that it's been gone for a long time.

 

TL;DR, what happened to creepy Muse

Edited March 9, 2017 by frozenbanana

[Clunge]

Quite like that analogy - Muse have been to music what Bay has been to Hollywood. Loud, brash, overly-simplistic and kind of fun in the first instance but something you don't go back to.

 

Totally agree too - there is just no nuance at all any more, even if I do unashamedly love Reapers and Dead Inside.

[Orpheus3]

Another problem with this album (and Muse generally post Absolution) is that they seem to have lost the ability to make genuinely dark and chilling songs.

 

And this time they seemed to suggest those songs were back. Fairly sure it came up in the interviews all the time before Drones was released about how it was going to be about abandonment, despair and rage against the system, before the eventual defection, etc. blah blah blah. Then we got all the track names - "Dead Inside", "Psycho", "Mercy", "The Handler", "Revolt" - and they backed that up.

 

And then the songs come out and there's no depth to them whatsoever. Dead Inside is almost poppy, with kinda corny lyrics in places (as discussed). Psycho's chorus is "your ass belongs to me now". The less said about Mercy the better (but "tell me why the men in cloaks always have to bring me down!!" - those darn men in cloaks, eh?). Reapers ("babe") and The Handler are sort of saved by their heaviness, and the post-chorus vocal thing in The Hander is the closest Muse come to sounding a little unsettling (not sure that's the right word, but anyway) on the album. But then Defector is just Queenish and Revolt sounds like something out of a cheesy musical, and both have utterly vapid lyrics.

 

Drones ends up being equivalent - musically and lyrically - of what I imagine a Michael Bay movie about warfare would be. All big bangs and no subtlety and no emotional heft whatsoever.

 

But they used to be able to do this stuff properly! The erosive atmosphere of Hyper Chondriac Music, the taut claustrophobia of Dead Star (or Hysteria), the eeriness of Ruled by Secrecy, etc. It's a shame that it's been gone for a long time.

 

TL;DR, what happened to creepy Muse

 

This. All of this. Something worked when the scope, at least lyrically, was deeply personal. The arch, titanic clash of histrionic emotion gave a super-hereoan feel to mundane wounds. Muse took universal human pains and rocketed them up into Greek Myth.

 

But then they start to make political statements and just get unbearably lazy. The idea make sense on paper, but it seems like they couldn't decide between an artistic statement or a fun heavy riff. They knew they'd make money. They've gotten deeply, deeply lazy.

[s3ker]

Drones ends up being equivalent - musically and lyrically - of what I imagine a Michael Bay movie about warfare would be. All big bangs and no subtlety and no emotional heft whatsoever.

 

 

This is spot on, even though I believe Drones was heavier (in some moments) on that emotional sincerity.

[Jobby]

I don't think 'lazy' is the right word. If they were lazy and just cranking out albums for the money/sake of it, I don't think they'd have been willing to work anywhere near as hard as Mutt made them work on Drones (even if they did have a good moan about it).

 

I think it's just a combo of Matt running the creative well a bit dry (recycling old riffs, repetitive songs, genre hopping) and growing a skewed perception of what people want/expect from Muse nowadays (bombastic, almost silly music about pseudo-politics). Hence why, as much as I'd find the wait hard, some people want them to take a longer break before going for another album.

[forevermusic]

While I like more of Drones than I don't, I do kinda agree that before the next full LP (or flood of singles or whatever) that an extended absence might work. There's been a cycle of one LP every 3 years since Absolution, and it may well be the case that creatively, it might not be the worst idea to break from that.

 

Although whether or not its being broken with whatever they're currently working on remains to be seen.

[01FromFinland]

And when speaking of big market bands around the world, it's a repeating theme you can see with them. With few exceptions of course. First, when the band breaks through, the flood gates open(Showbiz, OoS, Hullabaloo and Abso were four years apart and there was crapton of singles and whatnot in the mix too). Then it calms down a bit(just a few singles and mostly just touring in 2003-06) and after the next album(BHaR in their case obv) the cycle of 'new album every few years' begins, couple of live dvd's here and there. Then, for most bands, comes the break. I think they're in that stage, but what we know of how Matt's mind works, I'm not sure if he's ready for the break yet. Sometimes I feel he's too anxious to just give himself some time. Like he thinks people would forget them and their music.

[Con101]

I think they're in that stage, but what we know of how Matt's mind works, I'm not sure if he's ready for the break yet. Sometimes I feel he's too anxious to just give himself some time. Like he thinks people would forget them and their music.

 

Yeah, completely agree, as I do with pretty much everything said on this last page. I think them achieving considerably more success in the US from the Resistence onwards has definitely played into this too. Maybe he's worried this is their peak and to take a lengthy break now would be detrimental to their success.

 

But the thing is, I think they're past the stage of being a band who have to release music consistently to stay relevant. As someone said before, taking a 6-7 year hiatus might even improve the quality of the music and they would come back to sold out dates globally when they returned, without question.

 

Either that or they just genuinely enjoy the constant touring

[frutiger75]

. As someone said before, taking a 6-7 year hiatus might even improve the quality of the music and they would come back to sold out dates globally when they returned, without question.

 

 

in no way does matt, in particular, strike me as the type to have a temperament so as to take a 6-7 year hiatus from anything.

 

c'mon -- do we really think their next LP should be released when everybody in the band would be closer to 50 years old as opposed to 40? by that time, we're more likely to see members of the band on stage with colostomy bags than we are to getting, for example: easily, FAWY, or the gallery played live.

[Jobby]

wut

[serpentsatellite]

I've had a colonic superbug. Multiple times. And even *I* won't have a colostomy bag when I'm 50.

I mean, Matt does NOT look like he's taking great care of himself, but...

 

But, I do agree the band is getting to the age where taking long breaks isn't going to do their popularity any favors.

And they haven't maintained the sort of fanbase in a lot of areas that will wait that long.

[Hat]

So what you're saying is that with a longer break, the casuals will disappear?

[serpentsatellite]

It doesn't sound so bad from our end.

Unfortunately the band seems to (admittedly) prefer that sort of crowd, so they'd probably just try extra hard to gain new casuals.

And when they're 50, those aren't going to be casuals that are attracted to experimental or hard rock music...

I think if we feel like they're a U2/Queen tribute band now, age is not going to improve that.

[frutiger75]

And when they're 50, those aren't going to be casuals that are attracted to experimental or hard rock music...

I think if we feel like they're a U2/Queen tribute band now, age is not going to improve that.

 

surely the band has done enough by now to fully divest themselves from the U2/queen/RH comparisons? ...or will they always be so shackled?

 

what's in the cards between now and when they're all 50 (i.e. in the next ten years-ish)? what will they do to further establish/define their legacy -- whatever that turns out to be?

 

what did drones "say" about the current state of the band? anything? just another isolated benchmark along their creative path?

 

why am i asking so many questions?

[Hat]

surely the band has done enough by now to fully divest themselves from the U2/queen/RH comparisons? ...or will they always be so shackled?

 

what's in the cards between now and when they're all 50 (i.e. in the next ten years-ish)? what will they do to further establish/define their legacy -- whatever that turns out to be?

 

what did drones "say" about the current state of the band? anything? just another isolated benchmark along their creative path?

 

why am i asking so many questions?

If anything they've become MORE like Queen and U2 as they've "progressed".

[serpentsatellite]

Drones the album said they were interested in throwing their old fans a bone, but only so far as promising a "CE II" that was really nothing of the sort, talking extensively about "going back to the basics," and ultimately pretty much just using a riff from '99 as the entire basis for a 5 minute plus song, releasing it as a fan service, and calling it a day.

 

What Drones the tour told us was that they really, REALLY want to be U2, and old fan heavy favorites like Defector and Reapers didn't really fit that vision.

 

They know what they're doing, honestly, and the strict cycle is likely a sweet spot where people are willing to throw around $100 at a big ballistic stage show again, while giving the band's people time to put a new window dressing up.

Let's be honest, the money is coming from these gigs, and capitalizing on playing fairly pricy shows in only the regions where they're going to maximize profits.

If this was about the fans they wouldn't skip so many areas, and fans, where they can't support the big show.

 

I believe they tried to have their cake and eat it too this cycle, sacrificing mainstream popularity of the album's songs to try and appease old fans, while catering gigs to casual fans looking for a visual circus.

Edited March 17, 2017 by SerpentSatellite

[Con101]

I kind of hope for a future scenario where they come full circle and scale down the shows, but in all honesty there is absolutely no precedent to suggest they are going to do that.

 

As for the music itself, I sort of think it's beyond redemption at this point. That's definitely not to say everything they've release last few years has been poor from top to bottom, but as someone mentioned earlier, even in most of the tracks that garner high praise, there's an unshakable element of cheesiness and bombast that seems to be hard wired into Matts writing at this point.

 

Part of me wonders what Chris and Dom make of it all, because Dom was talking up the Handler pre album release, which imo is pretty much as close as they've got to so called 'classic' Muse in the last 10 years, whilst Matt was waxing lyrical about The Globalist. Makes you think.

[FabriPav]

surely the band has done enough by now to fully divest themselves from the U2/queen comparisons?

 

I dunno, have you heard their last three/four records?

[Clunge]

Never forget the extended version of Unnatural Selection .

[forevermusic]

I don't mind the US extension, even if it is improved without it.

[frutiger75]

I dunno, have you heard their last three/four records?

 

no. i'll have to check them out at some point.

[FabriPav]

Meh, there's only a couple of good songs across all four to be honest

[Jobby]

Never forget the extended version of Unnatural Selection .

 

Legit the worst thing they'd ever put to record for me, until Aftermath trundled along.

 

I'd give them a pat on the back for not putting it on the album, but they still released it

[frutiger75]

Never forget the extended version of Unnatural Selection .

 

lol. i glossed over this.

 

#neverforget