![]() So a song like “Supermassive Black Hole” appears in Twilight, and it’s unsuccessful (sorry) because both compete for the audience’s attention. Imagine what happens if you sync something like “Stockholm Syndrome:” And remember, “Starlight” is the most accessible of Muse tracks. Because a Muse track is a purely sensory vehicle, it turns any space into a Muse concert. It can’t get out of the way of a furniture ad. There is too much odd Bellamy, too many little space synth blips in the prechorus to allow mass-market penetration. Nobody will ever ruin “Clocks”-it remains impervious, the universal solvent of pop music. It can succeed in any environment due to its malleability and generally pleasant demeanor. What separates the success of “Starlight” from a song like “Clocks” is a sense of location: the Coldplay hit can subsume itself into whatever muck paid EMI to use it, because it’s a perfect pop track. Yet it’s still Muse, and so in a sense it is uncompromising. It may be their best pop song: danceable, head-bobbable, syncopated piano riff and big prechorus, handclaps everywhere. It’s probably Muse’s most successful power ballad, and Muse has a litany of them. “Starlight” may be calibrated for big crowds at a Muse concerts, but it succeeds elsewhere because it is catchy, propulsive, and a little gorgeous. They sing along so clearly you can hear their accent. The crowds cheer along to the melody like it’s a soccer anthem, which it probably is somewhere. I’ve been talking a lot about sensory assault, but it’s not clear until you look at live footage. Yet for all the syncs in the world, Muse songs exist to be played at Muse shows-they are crowd interaction vehicles, made for chants and hand-claps and air guitar. Mumford and Sons can put “I Will Wait” on a furniture ad and it will succeed, because that’s the nature of the song. The band exists to become popular, and so pop-big is just another hit song away. It might seem obvious that a band gets popular based on live performance and songwriting, but for Muse it’s an exceptional case. Muse is not just big, but pop-big, and to be pop-big as a band you need the songs and the shows. It’s not just surface: Matt Bellamy isn’t bad-looking by any stretch,īut he’s not pretty enough to exist solely on tabloid fame. ![]() It’s not a structural accident that Muse got Twilight money, and Mars Volta broke up. But only one has the numbers to back it up. The crucial difference between Muse and, say, Coheed and Cambria isn’t the sense of scale-both bands attempt to sound huge. Nobody is quite sure how intentional it is.Īll this should have the mechanics of a great cult act. ![]() See the padlock symbol shown by most browsers when you checkout.Muse Fact: The drum beat on “Starlight” spells out TITS in Morse Code.
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