Jump to content

Recommended Posts

By chart performance their biggest UK hit is Supermassive Black Hole, which hit #4, so that's usually a decent crowd mover, though I'd say Plug in Baby, Starlight, TIRO and KoC are generally the main ones that garner consistently great crowd reactions.

 

I'd ordinarily say Uprising would but I don't really remember it getting a frenzied reaction as much as certain others. Certainly I do recall Brighton where the crowd weren't really that interested in it. Maybe my mind's a bit out on this, but I can recall the crowd being more up for Dead Star than Madness at the Emirates. Or least where I was.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not sure Muse's more recent out-and-out pop stuff has been all that well received over here tbh. Madness usually gets muted reactions and UD was one of their biggest flops iirc. Don't think DI did amazing either, could be wrong on that though. Psycho did pretty well for itself, so maybe that's a sign of...something, idk.

 

Ranked my closers from '06-'16 after that discussion btw:

 

Bliss (ext.) / Stockholm + TAB (yes this warrants it's own credit)

Stockholm

Showbiz + Ashamed

Survival

Take A Bow

PIB

New Born

Knights

Starlight

Reapers

TIRO

Mercy

Edited by Jobby
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Their biggest hit in the US was Madness, by far.

 

Starlight does remain their most universally recognized hit, though, it seems.

 

Having checked on Wikipedia, I discovered something interesting. Though both Uprising and Madness made it to #1 on the alternative charts and both went 2× Platinum, Uprising also peaked at #37 on the Billboard Hot 100, while Madness only went to #45. So technically, that makes Muse a one-hit wonder in the US.

 

Man, our country really does suck, doesn't it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The charts are so messed up and segregated in the US it's kind of hard to judge.

Madness set an overall record for weeks at #1, even if it wasn't the "mainstream" charts, so I think it's still safe to call it a "hit."

 

It also garnered them a more "mainstream" crowd (despite not being on those charts) than Uprising ever did, and the band themselves complains about that.

 

It IS interesting to realize how big Uprising actually was in the US, considering the band's belief that the US crowd isn't into their "rock" songs in the slightest (proven again by Reapers being dropped for half of the tour despite being exceptionally successful at rock radio.)

My belief is that in being a generic "political" anthem that could be attributed to pretty much any side of the fence had as much or more to do with it's popularity than the genre of the song.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

iirc, Madness didn't do that well other than the US? It set some sort of alternative radio longevity record over here.

Certainly, all of its best chart performances are in the United States, and some of its other better numbers appear to be in Canada.

 

Its definitely the song's strongest territory. Which makes it more surprising that the GuitarCenter LA Mayan thing cut it.

Not sure Muse's more recent out-and-out pop stuff has been all that well received over here tbh. Madness usually gets muted reactions and UD was one of their biggest flops iirc. Don't think DI did amazing either, could be wrong on that though. Psycho did pretty well for itself, so maybe that's a sign of...something, idk.

Last top 10 single Muse had here was Uprising. Surprisingly Neutron Star Collision nearly made it - got to #11 - while Survival and Madness were top 25, but nothing close since. Tbh I think Survival got a better reaction than Madness at UK T2L shows, although I'm not 100% certain on that.

 

Its one thing our charts have changed so that streaming is now a big driver and something popular for mass streaming as, say, Drake's One Dance can stay in the charts for about 39 months, despite it being boring, but rock bands haven't really had great single chart success for a few years now.

 

Certainly at gigs I found Psycho to get a decent reaction, although that bouncy riff kinda helps. Reapers didn't really get as great a one as I thought it would. DI didn't really get a great reaction at my O2 gig - albeit still better than at Glastonbury, when the cheers for the song starting are basically mute judging by the proshot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having checked on Wikipedia, I discovered something interesting. Though both Uprising and Madness made it to #1 on the alternative charts and both went 2× Platinum, Uprising also peaked at #37 on the Billboard Hot 100, while Madness only went to #45. So technically, that makes Muse a one-hit wonder in the US.

 

Man, our country really does suck, doesn't it?

 

I remember Madness going to number 8 on the iTunes charts when it came out, and it stayed up there for a while. Whatever Billboard put it's "actual" ranking at, it was definitely a huge hit, especially considering how hard it is to have a rock hit anymore (the biggest ones in the past few years have been Imagine Dragons and Twenty One Pilots to my recollection, and I'm not talking about anything from Smoke + Mirrors as far as ID are concerned).

 

As far as hits in the US, if you don't count Drones, Muse's singles have only been getting more popular with each album. Folks I've talked to generally have no idea what PiB is, nor TiRO and Hysteria for that matter, but a good number of them recognize Starlight and SMBH (and NSC, because Twilight). After that most people are familiar with Uprising (they seem to either know the chorus or the fact that it sounds like the Doctor Who theme), and probably 80% of people know Madness (quite a hook on that thing). Also, when T2L was still new, I remember Panic Station playing on my local alt rock station every time I turned it on for a whole summer (which was most days). I've also heard Resistance on a couple of occasions on that station. Oh, and anyone who played a good bit of guitar hero knows KoC, so that almost makes BH&R their most popular album over here.

 

I was really disappointed when DI and Mercy barely got any play over here and barely made an impact. In retrospect, as great as those songs were, they didn't have the kind of inescapable hooks that Madness and Uprising had, and since Muse still aren't any kind of a household name in the US (despite the fact that most people know at least one of their songs), people weren't about to stream the new Muse singles over on namesake alone. If Muse want to be as big in America as ID or TOP, they need the next album to have three or four Madness-level tracks, not just a couple of Starlight-level tracks. If they could manage that they'd be huge over here, but until then roughly 1 in 10 people I ask will know who they are.

 

Whether they get that kind of fame in the US or not, I'll be looking forward to each new record for years to come. They've got my attention for life, and that's all that really matters to me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
I thought it was rough in the middle of the set, too, which is where I mostly saw it. With each passing tour it feels like there's more and more downtime in between songs, and MWAH just felt like another overlong break in the action.

 

Not at all controversial: the band needs to tighten up their damn set

 

The difference is though, I don't mind Interlude to Hysteria or MWAH so much as they actually play those. Isolated System, JFK and Drones, fuck off. Drill Sergeant can stay in the occasional rotation, it's so short.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The difference is though, I don't mind Interlude to Hysteria or MWAH so much as they actually play those. Isolated System, JFK and Drones, fuck off. Drill Sergeant can stay in the occasional rotation, it's so short.

 

Interlude into Hysteria, Prelude into Survival, JFK into Defector, never change this..but they already did! :eek::mad:

Isolated system didn't fit into the Drones set, I'd prefer Unsustainable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interlude into Hysteria, Prelude into Survival, JFK into Defector, never change this..but they already did! :eek::mad:

Isolated system didn't fit into the Drones set, I'd prefer Unsustainable.

 

Oh yeah I forgot about Prelude to Survival. But that's another one that's actually played, not _playback_.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It was Prelude into Starlight, wasn't it?

 

Least that's what happened at the O2. I'm pretty sure Prelude was only played on the Drones Tour. And bizarrely, the bass and drums sounded better for that than for Starlight itself.

 

Yes! Into starlight! Imagine being there and getting excited for Survival :(

I recently watched early performances of Starlight, rocking! Why did they have to make it into a pop-singalong-clapalong-shitty-thing, sorry not sorry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I dunno, when you're playing 15 song sets, and half of them have some sort of often long as hell "intro" (not to mention the equally choreographed outros,) it starts to feel like filler.

This is something I would expect a band to do that doesn't have 7 albums, and is maybe struggling to fill the set time. Or a band that's so bored or lazy they don't want to add more songs, maybe.

 

Putting Prelude before Starlight, and JFK before whatever random song that wasn't Defector (that it often didn't even make sense with) just cemented in my mind that they were simply trying to waste as much time as possible.

 

Why does the band need such a long break before every damn song? They're not 80.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I dunno, when you're playing 15 song sets, and half of them have some sort of often long as hell "intro" (not to mention the equally choreographed outros,) it starts to feel like filler.

This is something I would expect a band to do that doesn't have 7 albums, and is maybe struggling to fill the set time. Or a band that's so bored or lazy they don't want to add more songs, maybe.

 

Putting Prelude before Starlight, and JFK before whatever random song that wasn't Defector (that it often didn't even make sense with) just cemented in my mind that they were simply trying to waste as much time as possible.

 

Why does the band need such a long break before every damn song? They're not 80.

 

Taken from the Hartwall arena set(which was actually above average for the tour considering we got Map, TaB and Reapers):

 

*Isolated System(shortened)*

The Handler

SMBH + Voodoo Child intro

Prelude

Starlight

Feeling Good

Munich Jam

Madness

*JFK*

Interlude

Hysteria

 

That is actually some meme-tier shit. JFK INTO INTERLUDE and then Hysteria? Wtf man?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Taken from the Hartwall arena set(which was actually above average for the tour considering we got Map, TaB and Reapers):

 

*Isolated System(shortened)*

The Handler

SMBH + Voodoo Child intro

Prelude

Starlight

Feeling Good

Munich Jam

Madness

*JFK*

Interlude

Hysteria

 

That is actually some meme-tier shit. JFK INTO INTERLUDE and then Hysteria? Wtf man?

 

Yeah, this was beyond a joke. Just a load of crap. What's worse is that half of those indulgent wanky intros like Voodoo Child and IS were played at Glasto, where they didn't even have the excuse of big screens and drones to accommodate (The Handler's visuals were a complete fail on the festival stage)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Taken from the Hartwall arena set(which was actually above average for the tour considering we got Map, TaB and Reapers):

 

*Isolated System(shortened)*

The Handler

SMBH + Voodoo Child intro

Prelude

Starlight

Feeling Good

Munich Jam

Madness

*JFK*

Interlude

Hysteria

 

That is actually some meme-tier shit. JFK INTO INTERLUDE and then Hysteria? Wtf man?

Yeah we got JFK -> Interlude -> Hysteria in London too. Didn't work.

 

It worked better going into Stockholm Syndrome, and it oddly worked going into Assassin - if thematically questionable - but not as well as what it actually fucking leads into on the LP.

 

Overall though, yes, the flow of that section left a lot to be desired. And it was hardly that happening for us given Dead Inside directly lead into Isolated System.

Yeah, this was beyond a joke. Just a load of crap. What's worse is that half of those indulgent wanky intros like Voodoo Child and IS were played at Glasto, where they didn't even have the excuse of big screens and drones to accommodate (The Handler's visuals were a complete fail on the festival stage)

Yeah on the festival tour it felt a bit like too much just persisting with all the intros at once. Although I think The Handler visuals didn't look like a total fail, even if not quite as good as the high screens on the Drones Tour.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...