Day 64: "Absolution" - Muse (2004)
[[Editors Note]]: Ever had writers block? I've had half this blog post written for a couple of days now, but I'm finding it hard to coalesce my thoughts into some kind of coherent narrative about this album. I've got fragments, parts, but no glue, nothing binding to hold it together. In the interests of not letting this project wither on the vine because I can't seem to collect my thoughts about this album, I'm going to power through it for the next 45 minutes and see what I come up with, but apologies is this isn't my best writing (which is of dubious quality at the best of times).
[[Editors Note 2]]: I am going to finish this entry today if it kills me. It's now been nearly 9 days, the longest I have had an unfinished blog entry so far, and I need to put this behind me now.
* * *
I've spend a day or so trying to figure out how to frame my feelings for this blog post; don't worry, this isn't one of those scary over-share stories I pepper in these posts to ambush you into being my silent therapist - it's more a question of how to talk about a band who's work I find highly conflicting. They've followed an unusual, probably unique, arc in my musical grand reckoning which I've never really taken the time to think about, but here we are. So let's talk about Muse, shall we?
listen to me here
Funny story - before writing this post, I'd glanced at what was next on the pile, but somehow mistaken this album for "Showbiz", which I duly subjected some guests to last week while I was trying to 'listen ahead' to albums which were coming up. I took the time to listen to "Absolution" this morning, and it made me re-evaluate some opinions which I had previously been pretty sure about.
And here's the problem. I think Muse are OK. This is going to read as heresy to at least one person I know, but for me, they had become a band which had bought into their own hype to such a degree that they had become such a black hole of pretentious Queen-But-Without-The-Sense-Of-Humour-And-Obsessed-With-Space-ness that I'd actively stopped caring about them. I know some people fete them as this uniquely operatic stadium rock band, this transcendental musical experience, but mainstream success, and their reaction to it, ruined Muse for me to some degree.
So, as each new album released, Muse became a band defined in my eyes (or ears) by diminishing returns. My opinion of all their music declined as I dutifully purchased each album after this one, and for each one felt a sometimes indefinable but ever-present disappointment with it to some degree or another. And so, as the years went on, and I heard Matt Bellamy being interviewed on the radio, and their albums started to blur together, at some point, I just...stopped listening to them.
Listening to "Absolution" again front to back reminded me of the Muse I enjoyed at the height of their musical prime. You could argue back and forth with me about whether this or "Origin of Symmetry" are the better album, but no matter which side you come down on, I think the quality level is pretty high. I found myself driving, toe-tapping, singing along (such as I can to even approximate Matt Bellamy's ridiculous operatic range) and being caught up in the high-tempo energy of the album from the start, which in turn answered the question "did the band change, or did I?" In this case, it turns out that the albums of theirs that made me a fan, I am still a fan of; instead, it's the doubling down on the weirdly pompous space opera (in the musical, not cinematic term) vibe that drowned my interest in all of their music, retroactively making me disregard them as a whole, rather than just disregarding the parts of their discography I find mediocre.
The other thing I should mention is that none of what I said above should be applied to Muse as a Live Band Experience. The difference between seeing them live and listening to their music recreationally is a significant one - they are a band where, like Pink Floyd and Jean Michelle Jarre and Daft Punk, so much of what they do is so much more compelling when linked with the visual production element that runs through all 3 live Muse performances I have seen. Muse live borders on the theatrical, and its the kind of show I would recommend to someone who is interested in music generally but hasn't heard of Muse - familiarity with their material is not required to have a good time at a Muse show.
So, for me, my plan is to start pretending albums after "Black Holes and Revelations" just don't exist, and to listen to that one only sparingly. It's possible the best way to appreciate Muse for me is to subscribe to the theory that some time during the end of 2006, they blasted off to their home planet, never to be heard from again.
So, as each new album released, Muse became a band defined in my eyes (or ears) by diminishing returns. My opinion of all their music declined as I dutifully purchased each album after this one, and for each one felt a sometimes indefinable but ever-present disappointment with it to some degree or another. And so, as the years went on, and I heard Matt Bellamy being interviewed on the radio, and their albums started to blur together, at some point, I just...stopped listening to them.
Listening to "Absolution" again front to back reminded me of the Muse I enjoyed at the height of their musical prime. You could argue back and forth with me about whether this or "Origin of Symmetry" are the better album, but no matter which side you come down on, I think the quality level is pretty high. I found myself driving, toe-tapping, singing along (such as I can to even approximate Matt Bellamy's ridiculous operatic range) and being caught up in the high-tempo energy of the album from the start, which in turn answered the question "did the band change, or did I?" In this case, it turns out that the albums of theirs that made me a fan, I am still a fan of; instead, it's the doubling down on the weirdly pompous space opera (in the musical, not cinematic term) vibe that drowned my interest in all of their music, retroactively making me disregard them as a whole, rather than just disregarding the parts of their discography I find mediocre.
The other thing I should mention is that none of what I said above should be applied to Muse as a Live Band Experience. The difference between seeing them live and listening to their music recreationally is a significant one - they are a band where, like Pink Floyd and Jean Michelle Jarre and Daft Punk, so much of what they do is so much more compelling when linked with the visual production element that runs through all 3 live Muse performances I have seen. Muse live borders on the theatrical, and its the kind of show I would recommend to someone who is interested in music generally but hasn't heard of Muse - familiarity with their material is not required to have a good time at a Muse show.
So, for me, my plan is to start pretending albums after "Black Holes and Revelations" just don't exist, and to listen to that one only sparingly. It's possible the best way to appreciate Muse for me is to subscribe to the theory that some time during the end of 2006, they blasted off to their home planet, never to be heard from again.
