Album Eight: Simulation Theory

[forevermusic]

I like Endlessly and Exo-Politics, so... meh.

[LewisF]

I do like studio Exo-Politics, but it’s just the fact that it could have been so much better with better production.

I guess if we had never heard the 2005 live version then maybe we’d all view the studio version in a better light, just that we know how it could have been that makes it come under criticism

[Jobby]

Aftermath had the potential to be a top 15 Muse song. The ending ruined it for me.

 

did it though

 

I like Endlessly and Exo-Politics, so... meh.

 

who doesn't like Endlessly?

 

WTF is wrong with Aftermath? It's a great song.

:

LMAO

[lurkinglurkerlurksagain]

did it though

 

yes. On first listen, the bluesy riff, and melodic bass were great.

[MartianSpaghettiRider]

I do like studio Exo-Politics, but it¡¯s just the fact that it could have been so much better with better production.

I guess if we had never heard the 2005 live version then maybe we¡¯d all view the studio version in a better light, just that we know how it could have been that makes it come under criticism

 

My main problem with Exo-Politics is that I find the initial riff a bit "honky-tonky" (I don't know how to properly define it). Right after that the song gets progressively better, though, even if I don't love it as much as many others by them.

[Nicklord]

Guiding Light meme is 10 times worse than the song itself. Don't think I saw one good one

[serpentsatellite]

I heard studio Exo first, so I did like it. It might even have been in the top half of the album for me. Early version still crapped on my enjoyment of the studio version hearing it after the fact. Kinda wish I'd never heard it.

And the beginning of Aftermath was really, really promising. Right up until that impossibly bad, whispery, gaggy first line of vocals.

It sounds like someone singing a bad Shatner impression.

 

The only fans that are "fucking cancerous" are the ones that shit on other people's opinions, whether those opinions are positive OR critical.

[forevermusic]

I do like studio Exo-Politics, but it’s just the fact that it could have been so much better with better production.

I guess if we had never heard the 2005 live version then maybe we’d all view the studio version in a better light, just that we know how it could have been that makes it come under criticism

Maybe it's all just that in fairness. I think the studio version is good if a little throwaway but the original version was much better.

who doesn't like Endlessly?

I'd imagine there's a couple who don't.

 

I used to have it as one of my favourites and while I'm a bit cooler now, I still think its great. IMO I'd rate it above the similar but more successful electronic-based love songs like Madness and Undisclosed (although I do rate the UD Thin White Duke remix).

[FabriPav]

I'll never forgive him for Aftermath.

 

You shouldn't forgive Muse for it either!

 

WTF is wrong with Aftermath? It's a great song.

 

God, the Muse fanbase is so bad LMAO, they just pick and choose random songs to put on the hate bandwagon for no reason. Endlessly, Exo-Politics, Guiding Light, and now Aftermath, none of these songs sound bad yet this fucking cancerous picky fanbase dislikes them for no reason. What the hell is wrong with you people?

 

If this was a Radiohead board this post would definitely become a meme.

[Jobby]

yes. On first listen, the bluesy riff, and melodic bass were great.

 

Looking back, I guess it's easy to forget how surprisingly optimistic I was during the intro (given how everyone had earmarked that song as probably being a dud early on).

 

Still though, not to kiss the band's arse but their top 30 is pretty much wall-to-wall amazing, let alone their top 15. Speculating that one of their worst songs could've been right up there based off the intro and a loose description from Matt is a seeerious stretch of the imagination

 

If this was a Radiohead board this post would definitely become a meme.

 

Defo storing 'this fucking cancerous picky fanbase' in my mind for future use.

[LoganMH]

And the beginning of Aftermath was really, really promising. Right up until that impossibly bad, whispery, gaggy first line of vocals.

It sounds like someone singing a bad Shatner impression.

 

Well, the first line of Aftermath ("war is all around") sounds heavily pitch corrected (or clumsily shortened using Melodyne or similar), which would explain why it sounds so unnatural (one of about three bizarre instances across Drones). The fact that it's so easy to sing/would have taken no time at all to overdub is presumably what's stopping people from hearing/accepting it and presuming it was just a bad take they agreed to keep. I agree that the final line ("loneliness has gone") is also terrible, and that's where the "bad impression" comes in, as you say. I'm not keen on the arrangement/instrumentation in the song in general, so don't think those two lines being performed better would've made much difference for me, but I completely agree that they hurt it. It did sound like the band left Mutt to do his thing with the track based on interviews, so I expect he's partly responsible for how it ended up sounding.

 

I think it's a fairly hopeful sign if Rich Costey is co-producing the new track. I felt his production on Absolution and Black Holes was mostly great as soon as I realised that he was probably responsible for a lot of the subtle, atmospheric touches and glue that have been missing from The Resistance onwards. Something about the mixing or mastering flattened the dynamics and didn't help though. I appreciate criticisms about how Exopolitics, Assassin etc. ended up losing something in their studio arrangements, but think it was in service of the album as a complete collection.

 

I'll be very interested to hear what the song sounds like, anyway !

Edited October 15, 2017 by LoganMH

[Hat]

Well, the first line of Aftermath ("war is all around") sounds heavily pitch corrected (or shortened using Melodyne or similar), which would explain why it sounds so unnatural (one of about three bizarre instances across Drones). The fact that it's so easy to sing/would have taken no time at all to overdub is presumably what's stopping people from hearing/accepting it and presuming it was just a bad take they agreed to keep.

I feel like this needs some more explanation. It's heavily pitch corrected OR shortened?

 

And I also don't get how overdubbing would have solved the problem.

[Jobby]

I never got that "they left Mutt to it, wasn't the band's fault" thing. If they weren't happy with what he did to it, surely they wouldn't have put it out?

 

Tbh, I always wondered if they suspected it might be a dud among fans beforehand and consistently mentioned Mutt's big part in it to take any flack away from them in advance.

 

I appreciate criticisms about how Exopolitics, Assassin etc. ended up losing something in their studio arrangements, but think it was in service of the album as a complete collection.

 

What does this mean?

[Hat]

I never got that "they left Mutt to it, wasn't the band's fault" thing. If they weren't happy with what he did to it, surely they wouldn't have put it out?

That is fair enough, but we can also say that it never would have happened if it weren't for Mutt.

[LoganMH]

I feel like this needs some more explanation. It's heavily pitch corrected OR shortened?

 

Sorry, it felt vague/unclear as I was writing it I don't know the correct terminology to describe the features of Melodyne, Newtone and other vocal fine-tuning tools off the top of my head, but it's definitely been clumsily processed by something like that (whether to correct/modulate the pitch of the original take in some way or adjust the length/tightness of the words, I'm not sure), resulting in that sort of stuttering, inhuman sound in Aftermath's first line. Normally this sort of alteration is done subtly enough that it doesn't notice, but if the effects are overdone (often just a case of turning an adjustment knob too far up or down), the voice starts sounding unnatural and robotic. Without boring everyone with example videos or brushing up on the specifics I probably won't be able to back myself up too well, but have no doubt this is what happened to that opening line (I've messed around with similar on a much more amateurish level). There's bound to be someone hiding away here who knows much more about audio engineering/vocal-editing who'd do a better job of explaining - maybe something for a separate thread !

 

And I also don't get how overdubbing would have solved the problem.

 

What I was meaning with the overdub comment is that if there was something about that line that didn't quite sound right in the original vocal take (and they didn't want to do another full runthrough), it shouldn't have taken long to re-record the line by itself. Not ideal to be cutting and pasting if you're wanting a 100% genuine performance, but neither's the vocal processing they went with instead ! None of it would be anywhere near as strange if we don't already know that Matt's perfectly capable of recording vocals without any studio trickery!

 

 

I appreciate criticisms about how Exopolitics, Assassin etc. ended up losing something in their studio arrangements, but think it was in service of the album as a complete collection.

 

What does this mean?

 

Well, for example, that I think the length of BHAR is about right as it is, without the Grand Omega Bosses breakdown in Assassin (as much as I'm happy that I can listen to that version separately). I think Assassin being shorter adds to the power of City of Delusion and KoC, and keeps the album feeling tighter as a whole in its latter half. I like the live 2005 version of Exopolitics, but don't know if that arrangement would work so well for the flow of the album, either. It might do! But I expect the band and Rich Costey had valid reasons for deciding otherwise which I might agree with if I heard both possible versions back-to-back. Sometimes what seems like it'd work best for a song on a standalone basis won't necessarily work best for the song as part of a whole album (whether it be something about the balance of instruments in comparison to the tracks before and after, the overall flow, emotional peaks and troughs or whatever else). Take the combination of approaches on The 2nd Law for example - Matt said each of those tracks were produced in whatever way suited the individual songs and compiled together later, rather than approached as a collection of tracks that comprise a whole. For me, it ended up feeling like an unbalanced mish-mash (not at all helped by the track order, mind you).

 

Sorry - I didn't mean to derail things so much here, but appreciate my original post was a bit weird

[Jobby]

That is fair enough, but we can also say that it never would have happened if it weren't for Mutt.

 

It's not like he snook it onto the record without them noticing it though He did an awful job with it but the band are just as bad for agreeing with it imo.

 

I like the live 2005 version of Exopolitics, but don't know if that arrangement would work so well for the flow of the album, either.

 

It's pretty much the same song though - just with way better lyrics, one less chorus and leaving the main riff to Chris. Wouldn't affect flow at all. It's not like Assassin where they totally changed the whole tone of the song.

 

Same with Crying Shame where it's pretty much the same, but with the riff changed to some awful surf-rock shindig though I guess that didn't end up mattering so much since it didn't make the album. Still, could've been a good b-side.

[serpentsatellite]

The last line of Aftermath sounds like Matt's just completely out of breath, and I wondered if it was some sort of nod to "Mutt made them do everything in one take" or something. Either way, it should have been rerecorded.

The first line I feel is similar to one of the early parts of Follow Me; as much as I like that song, there's a real cringe line in there that sounds like it was either pieced together badly or Matt's odd phrasing/enunciation has gone off the deep end.

In the case of Aftermath, it just adds to making the song sound super amateurish for such a huge band (imo... obviously. ) Especially after how nice, if derivative, the intro is. (And let's be honest, Muse aping other songs has been a thing since ever.)

[LoganMH]

The last line of Aftermath sounds like Matt's just completely out of breath, and I wondered if it was some sort of nod to "Mutt made them do everything in one take" or something.

 

It's weird, isn't it? I wondered whether it might be a jokey affectation (in a song that otherwise plays it straight?), but whatever the case, it sounds horrible to me !

 

 

I like the live 2005 version of Exopolitics, but don't know if that arrangement would work so well for the flow of the album, either.

 

It's pretty much the same song though - just with way better lyrics, one less chorus and leaving the main riff to Chris. Wouldn't affect flow at all.

 

Mm, I can imagine a version where it does work, certainly But when I think of flow I'm not just thinking of energy and length but something about the balance of instruments too that I can't quite put into words. There might have been something that wasn't quite working with Chris's increased prominence for the first verse directly after Assassin's big wall-of-sound. Beef up the bass to compensate and then you have to figure out how to get the balance between guitar/bass right for the bridge/chorus without having to turn up *everything*. As a standalone, I think I slightly prefer the dynamics and intensity of the live arrangement, but I expect there might have been things that made it slightly trickier to stick with it in the studio. Maybe not, though. Could just have been a dodgy decision haha!

 

I do agree about Crying Shame, but I'd be interested to know whether the band actually had a space in mind for it to occupy on the album when they finished it up (as that could, again, go some way to explaining decisions about the arrangement). I mean this is all hypothetical, of course - it's obviously possible that there are versions of the songs hanging around that we'd both have preferred a great deal in and out of context, on every level of production

 

I'd be interested to know if the band are thinking of working with lots of different producers on their new tracks or if they're starting to get a sense of where they want to head with the LP/who they might want to involve?

Edited October 15, 2017 by LoganMH

[Bohemian-Cygnus-Running-Out]

So are we thinking just one or two new songs with Costey? Perhaps that "heavy" song that was rumored months before Dig Down?

 

I'm hoping/guessing this isn't the beginnings of LP8. After liking Dig Down initially, it's gotten old kinda quick. I still don't really take issue with it, but it's dull to have that still be the latest addition to the Muse catalogue. I'd rather have stuff out faster than have more stuff out at this point.

[serpentsatellite]

I think they're sticking with the singles release thing, and suspect this is a different song than the 2 they were working on with Dig Down.

 

While I can't imagine this amount of teasers for a jokey Halloween song at this point, I am not ruling it out.

[Bohemian-Cygnus-Running-Out]

I think they're sticking with the singles release thing, and suspect this is a different song than the 2 they were working on with Dig Down.

 

While I can't imagine this amount of teasers for a jokey Halloween song at this point, I am not ruling it out.

 

I mean, New Kind Of Kick wasn't exactly awful, it was at least funny. I'm just itching for new Muse at this point, lol.

[serpentsatellite]

I mean, New Kind Of Kick wasn't exactly awful, it was at least funny. I'm just itching for new Muse at this point, lol.

 

It was funny, but it was a complete throwaway track... and they've been hyping up this "new music every few months" thing for too long to disappoint people like that, I think.

[Bohemian-Cygnus-Running-Out]

It was funny, but it was a complete throwaway track... and they've been hyping up this "new music every few months" thing for too long to disappoint people like that, I think.

 

true

[Tesseract]

WTF is wrong with Aftermath? It's a great song.

 

God, the Muse fanbase is so bad LMAO, they just pick and choose random songs to put on the hate bandwagon for no reason. Endlessly, Exo-Politics, Guiding Light, and now Aftermath, none of these songs sound bad yet this fucking cancerous picky fanbase dislikes them for no reason. What the hell is wrong with you people?

 

This is so funny to me because I'm probably one of the more positive Muse fans you'll meet. I tend to defend most of their poorly-received material, but there are still a few songs I don't care for.

 

Anyways, I'm hoping Rich Costey is producing a whole album for them. He produced my favorite album (Absolution) so I think he could push Muse in a good direction. Obviously the songwriting is still most important.

[Bohemian-Cygnus-Running-Out]

This is so funny to me because I'm probably one of the more positive Muse fans you'll meet. I tend to defend most of their poorly-received material, but there are still a few songs I don't care for.

 

Anyways, I'm hoping Rich Costey is producing a whole album for them. He produced my favorite album (Absolution) so I think he could push Muse in a good direction. Obviously the songwriting is still most important.

 

I've always felt the production on Abso never really blends and leaves me kinda cold. That said, the songwriting and creative direction are top of the line Muse, so Rich can definitely help them reach great heights, and ever since TR I don't think overall sound and production has been a big issue on their records.

 

However, I'm feeling like this isn't going to be a whole album, and we'll hopefully see a song or two by mid November.