One of my favourite vocalists – in terms of range and ability – is Matthew Bellamy, lead singer of Muse (his falsetto is a thing of beauty).
Chris, Matt, Dom.
This post’s title comes from one of my favourite Muse songs, “Starlight”, but is also conveniently the title of my favourite Muse album (released in 2006).
Let’s conspire to ignite all the souls that would die just to feel alive.
Over the course of their 20-years and 6 full-length albums history, they have mixed elements from a variety of genres, which makes it impossible to truly categorize them. At different times in their Wikipedia article, they are referred to as being alternative rock, new prog, space rock, rock opera, symphonic rock, and progressive metal. I only know what some of those genres are (what the frack is ‘progressive metal’?).
Their sound has changed in each album, enough that you can hear their various influences: they’ve cited everyone from Queen to Chopin to Tom Morello and all the people in between. They have the type of sound that doesn’t necessarily work for everyone; for example, their most recent album, 2012’s The 2nd Law, sounds all-over-the-place when listening to the songs separately, but the album as a whole (in chronological order) makes perfect sense. For example, when “Madness” was released before the album, I was worried they had completely changed everything that made them so special. But as the album’s second track, it works magically.
Ma-ma-ma-ma-madness.
They also draw a lot of inspiration from literature. Most of 2009’s The Resistance was based on George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four and Matt Bellamy loves conspiracies, so you can sometimes find references to some of his rather outlandish convictions.
They will not force us. They will stop degrading us. They will not control us. We will be victorious.
Muse also puts on a phenomenal live show: the lighting and visual effects alone are mind-blowing (i.e. the roulette wheel used to choose between “Stockholm Syndrome” and “Plug-In Baby” on the last tour), never mind the fact that they sound just as good live as they do recorded (if anything, it’s more impressive). I’ve seen them twice: in fact, their show in 2010 was Nina’s first official concert and (in my opinion) is one of the events that really solidified our friendship FOREVER. If you ever get a chance to go to a Muse show, I highly recommend it.
bellsiebooks 