#2nd law album muse

[nematanthus]

New CDs for the collection

...And Justic For All- Metallica

The 2nd Law- Muse

Showbiz- Muse

[sunburnacoustic]

On Muse album closers: The 2nd Law

On Muse’s sixth album, The 2nd Law, Matt turns his eyes to environmental and existential anxieties, while placing the blame squarely at the feet of greed and capitalism, presented through a physics metaphor for an economic situation: just as the 2nd law of thermodynamics states that entropy (or general instability) of an isolated system is always increasing, an economic system building itself on endless growth becomes more unstable. (And as the first law states, perpetual motion, or growth, is impossible, and hence unsustainable in the long run). How anyone was surprised that this exactly was Muse's first album in the aftermath of the global financial crisis is beyond me.

An interesting mix of the electronic and 'real' elements on this album at a time when the debate about rock and guitar bands using electronic instruments was rife, it's interesting to me how some of the most overtly electronic songs on this album (Madness, Follow Me) also happen to be the most personal ones Matt wrote, while his rawness is reserved for his environmental angst: Animals, Explorers, to an extent Survival, when seen outside the Olympic light.

The two 2nd Law tracks flip that script of course, and the contrast between them (one heavier, the other much more understated) does kind of reflect what they're about, but the cold, chilling nature of Isolated System? Easy to see why they picked it as a soundtrack to play repeatedly under an apocalyptic film (which is still extremely diluted from the book, which does encompass more themes of a bio-ecological disaster than the film). It does return to Muse's tried and tested album closer formula of finishing the album with a haunting piece of music that will leave you thinking about the album you've just listened to, slightly unsettled.

[Part of the Album Closers: Unflipped series, full post here]

[rapidhighway]

need to know which is you favorite muse album i have a soft spot for showbiz and absolution :)

Oh I absolutely have a soft spot for Showbiz, but I really love Origin of Symmetry and Resistance as well. Tbh I used to not think that much about Resistance, I thought it was just fine, until I got a cd and listened to it on a cd player and it was so magical to me it became a favorite instantly.

[wildwoodart]

I love the concept of going to a Muse concert as a casual fan. Imagine going with a friend because you liked Supermassive Black Hole when you saw Twilight and all of a sudden they whip out the World War Z Theme.

[cydonianart]

Couldn’t find the source for this image but this is what I imagine the twentieth anniversary edition of The Second Law would look like:

[laromp3]

Animals - Muse

[nematanthus]

Album Review: The 2nd Law- Muse

Release Date:

September 28 2012

Tracklist:

Supremacy

Madness

Panic Station

Prelude

Survival

Follow Me

Animals

Explorers

Big Freeze

Save Me

Liquid State

The 2nd Law: Unsustainable

The 2nd Law: Isolated System

Favorite Track:

The 2nd Law: Isolated System

Least favorite track:

Big Freeze

Album art opinions:

The album cover features a map of the neural pathways of a human brain, though some have hilariously said it looks like radioactive broccoli. The album deals with themes of totalitarianism, societal collapse, and, as the title mentions, the 2nd law of thermodynamics. These themes considered, it makes sense why such an image would be chosen, as the album explores various reactions to learning the whole world is dying.

Color: 8/10

Recognizability: 7/10

Vibes: 7/10

Total: 7/10

Music opinions/notes:

This album is a major sound change for Muse, experimenting with electronic sounds, though there are traces of the symphonies from The Resistance present. This is a concept album telling the story of a society on the verge of collapse, and each song seems to tell the story of someone's reaction/action plan to deal with the situation at hand. There are some really beautiful moments instrumentally, tracks like Animals and Save Me have some gorgeous guitar and bass work, and some synth spotlights in songs like Follow Me. We also get a rare vocal treat in the songs Save Me and Liquid State, where lead vocalist Matt Bellamy takes a backseat. Instead, we have Bassist Chris Wolstenholme as the lead vocal. These two songs explore his personal struggles with alcoholism and have a much different vibe from the rest of the album, though they still fit within the overarching theme.

Mix: 8/10

Lyrics: 8/10

Instruments: 9/10

Vibes: 9/10

Total: 9/10

Total Score: 8/10

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

Supremacy • Madness • Panic Station • Prelude • Survival • Follow Me • Animals • Explorers • Big Freeze • Save Me • Liquid State • The 2nd Law: Unsustainable • The 2nd Law: Isolated System

Spotify ♪ YouTube

[sunburnacoustic]

‘Survival’ makes a lot more sense in the context of The 2nd Law, an album which encompasses the global economic crisis, peak oil theory, food security, evolution, the taxation proposals of 19th-century economist Henry George and the concept of the "stress nexus". "It's talking about the second law of thermodynamics and how, as a limited ecosystem, we are on the verge of needing an energy revolution in order to sustain the way that we're living," says Bellamy. "This inner strength we have, this desire to evolve and expand and explore, I do love that about humanity. At the same time it's scary what it does on a global scale. I'm very much caught between the two."

Bellamy is self-aware enough to have considered the quandary of criticising overconsumption while traversing the globe in a gas-guzzling stadium rock band. "Exactly! We're all a function of the world. I think for every finger you point out there should be three pointing back at you."

Matt Bellamy on The 2nd Law, ‘We like pushing it as far as we can’, Guardian interview, 2012

[rapidhighway]

just went through some muse tags and saw many ppl taking about how they love will of the people. Like, I WANT to like it. I reaaaally wanted to like it and it makes me want to try listening through it but I don't want to go through that again

[wildwoodart]

Does anyone have the transcript for new 2023 WOTP themed audio inserts to Isolated System? I can’t make them out in any of the live concert videos.

[cherrylng]

Muse Relay Interview Part 1 - Dom Howard [INROCK (October 2012)]

New album 'The 2nd Law ' released 3rd October. Muse Relay Interview / Part 1 - Dominic Howard.

To be honest, the old sound feels like crap to us now…

Dominic Howard/Muse INTERVIEW: P.G. BRUNELLI/INROCK

Charming and polite, Dominic Howard is the only member of Muse who enjoys the single life. Despite being a member of a big band that is so big worldwide, he himself is not at all discreet. This very big man, who is not recognisable from the outside, is now sitting by the poolside of a Shoreditch hotel in London's East End. Like him, this place is not very discreet from the outside, but it is in fact a fashionable and luxurious place, with a pool and a wonderful restaurant on the seventh floor overlooking the London skyline. There are a lot of pretentious people walking around with a confident attitude, as if they belong to some exclusive members-only club. Well, they probably do, but it's interesting to watch their world-conquering attitude. This is because, although they don't show it, there is a humble man right next to me who has actually conquered the world. Despite the rain, Dominic wears sunglasses under an umbrella. Perhaps it's a habit in Los Angeles, where he moved to be near frontman Matthew Bellamy. During the recording of the new album 'The 2nd Law', Dominic also made various suggestions and contributed more than ever to the album's production.

Breaking with the past seems to have been Muse's motto this time round? Dominic Howard (dr.) : That's always been our motto.

Do you think the reason for that is because mentally you're in a different place? Or is it simply because you're tired of playing the same old tunes? Dominic: In our case, we've been on tour for quite a long time, so that's a natural way of thinking about it. We tour for two and a half years and it really starts to feel like work. So when you've been on tour for that long, you get stuck in a rut with the way you play, the way you express the songs, the way you put on a show. If you start making an album with that feeling, there's a fear that you're going to repeat what you've done in the past, which is a theory that you can't explain. We don't want to touch anything that has to do with the past or is connected to the past anyway, so we can dig deeper into ourselves to explore new ideas.

"The last album had some parts that were too specific, but this one is more varied and experimental, and every song has some kind of surprise in it."

You played your second album Origin of Symmetry in its entirety at Reading Festival last year, does that represent a complete break with the past? Dominic: Yeah, it was a break with our distant past. We'd just celebrated the tenth anniversary of the release of that album, and we hardly played any songs from it, so it was nice to look back on it after all these years. It was fun to play it in a completely different way. At the same time, it made us realise how different we are as a band compared to the past, and how different a place we're trying to go to. To be honest, for us now, the sound we had back then feels like crap… It's a really cool album, of course, but it really shows how much we've changed. We played the album in its entirety and then played some new songs as an encore, and we were surprised at how different it sounded. It felt like the new songs made a lot more sense to us.

Chris (Wolstenholme, b.) says you wanted a different drumming style? The beginning and end of the songs are in a completely different style. Do you think this album is the most forward-thinking you've made as a drummer? Dominic: Yeah, I definitely think so. Especially in terms of production. We spent a lot more time playing together on this album than practising individually. Through that, we tried to get used to playing with three people and to understand the meaning and the feeling of each song. In terms of production, I really feel like we've made the most progress so far. The same goes for the electronic sound, I emphasised that aspect more deeply than ever before, and I had a lot of fun with the programming aspect as well. Electronic and programming are my favourite areas, and I love working in that environment. In our case, we basically worked in the same way as electronic artists, but we used real instrumental sounds. We layered a lot of drum sounds on top of each other. We use a lot of crazy drum sounds anyway, and there are a lot of songs that are made up of snare drums and big '80s sounds.

Which songs are you referring to, for example? Dominic: 'Panic Station' has a really interesting funky drum sound. It's got trumpets in it too. It's simple, but it's got an ongoing groove to it. I just wanted this song to have a big, loud, '80s-ish influenced drum sound. We've never done that before.

There's a similar funk-ish sound on 'Big Freeze', is there any connection between the two songs? Dominic: I'd say they're connected in that we used that big snare drum sound. 'The 2nd Law: Unsustainable' also takes a slightly different approach, in terms of the sonic concept. It's influenced by dubstep and electronic music, but we've done it in our own unique way by playing it with real instruments. We use orchestras for the build-up parts and then we actually play them during the climax parts. We wanted the drums to sound electronic, but with real drums, so we layered them on top of each other like never before.

This is only the second album you've produced yourself, but with such a complex sound, you must have had a lot more confidence in the production side of things than last time? Dominic: Yeah, I don't know if you can tell from listening to it, but we were quite confident this time. We knew exactly what we were doing in the studio compared to last time, and that's why we were able to experiment. Last time, we were in a studio in Italy and we tried producing for the first time, and it sounded good, but at the same time it was too idiosyncratic. That's what my manager said to me, and I think it's true. I guess you could say that we were trying to establish our own unique sound in complete isolation from the rest of the world. In fact, that was the goal of the last album. We were trying to establish a sound that was rooted in the roots of the band. This time, on the other hand, we're more experimental. There's a lot of variety on this album, there's a lot of different styles. Every song has some surprises. In terms of sound, in terms of production, and in terms of style. Anyway, we had to have a certain amount of confidence to do something so experimental.

People said that the last album was like you did whatever you wanted and got drunk on yourself, didn't you? The last three songs of the trilogy were particularly so. That's gone on this one, hasn't it? Dominic: Yeah, those three symphonies are definitely different. We're focusing more on the sound of each song this time.

Was it hard to decide which songs to include on the album? You must have had a lot of choices? Dominic: No, not at all. In our case, in the end, there's no song that we don't like or that we like but won't finish. If we decide that a song doesn't have the potential to be good, we don't go any further with it, and we never finish it halfway. In other words, if a song has potential, we record it straight away and use it as is. We never record 25 songs and then choose songs for the album. If we write a good song, we finish it and record it, that's it. Anyway, this time we emphasised the songs themselves rather than the big symphony pads, so we're not so drunk on ourselves like we were on the last record, and we were able to experiment a lot more in terms of sound rather than weird and quirky arrangements.

By the way, I understand you live in Los Angeles now. When did you move there? Dominic: I haven't moved completely, I kind of live half in L.A. and half in London. But I've been living in Los Angeles for 18 months now.

Did you move in after Matthew (Bellamy, vo./keys:/g.)? Dominic: Yeah, because we work as a team a lot. Also, a good friend of mine called Tom lives in L.A., so I thought I'd move there too. By the way, Tom does video work for us and he's the camera director at our shows. I've been working a lot in the US, especially in Los Angeles, for the last couple of years, and I really love it there. Matthew and Tom met their partner (Matthew's partner is Kate Hudson) in Los Angeles. We had some time off after the tour, so we decided to escape the English winter and go to Los Angeles. I love the vibe and the music scene in Los Angeles. Hollywood is really rock 'n' roll. It's always had that rock 'n' roll vibe from the past. Especially in the '80s. I like that a lot. I like that there are still old venues like the Roxy, the Troubadour, and the Whisky. They haven't been turned into supermarkets like in London, or tube stations like Astoria. If you go down the Sunset Strip, there are rich, luxurious houses and hotels all over the place, but next to them there are 200+ metal fans queuing outside to see a show at the House of Blues. It's a really fun city and I've made some great friends.

Both Matthew and Chris now have families, and there may be babysitters on the road soon, what do you think about that? Dominic: I think it's nice to have that family feel, isn't it? Yeah, I think it would be fun. Chris has had a family for 13 years now and Matthew is a father now, so there will be some changes, but I don't think it will affect the band too much. We've got to get a family bus for now.

Can you name a few of your personal favourite songs and talk about their background? Dominic: 'Panic Station' is a very important song and I think it will eventually become a single. I think that song will help to dispel the misconception that we're a hard-headed, serious band. We use a lot of symphonies and orchestras, so you might get that impression, and I think there are a lot of people who actually think "Muse are a weird band who are drunk on themselves", but this song shows that we're just having a bit of fun with the joke. It's a bit of '80s disco funk, influenced by David Bowie's 'Scary Monsters' and stuff like that. Especially vocally. We have four singers, as well as trumpets and saxophones, who have worked with Madonna, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, and they also played on Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition'. So it's a really fun song and I like it because it shows another side of Muse that we don't normally show. It's a song for a live performance. I also like a song called 'Animals', which is a very raw sounding song, just the three of us playing music in an unobtrusive way. It's about us just jamming to a groove, and we wanted to create the atmosphere of three people having fun playing in one room. If you listen closely, there are a lot of parts where it sounds like we're improvising. I also really like 'Supremacy'. It's got a big, stadium-grade riff and it's got a big sound, which is what we wanted with that song…

"'Panic Station' is a good opportunity for us to dispel the misconception that we're a hard-headed, serious band."

Like Black Sabbath? Dominic: You're the second person today to point out the Black Sabbath influence. It definitely sounds like Black Sabbath. I think the last album was so unique because we didn't want to write songs with the idea of playing them live, and we didn't want to think about playing them live at all anyway. We just wanted to work in the studio and forget we were a live band. But this time, on the contrary, we wrote the songs with that in mind, remembering that feeling of playing in a stadium live. That's why it sounds like a live show. There's also a bit of Ennio Morricone influence again, which we touched on a bit in the past, and it's been a while since we've done that, so it was quite fun to do something again that we haven't done on the last few albums. Anyway, this song has a great snare drum, bass drum, and cymbal sound, it's like a movie. I think it should be the theme song for the next James Bond film. It's got a very cinematic feel to it.

You're even going to perform at the closing ceremony of the Olympics, so maybe it wouldn't be a dream to get an offer for the Bond theme song. By the way, how many backing musicians do you have on stage these days? Dominic: Morgan (Nicholls, keys. and other backing vocals) is the only one. He's the only one we need at the moment, but we'll see what happens.

If you're going to do 'Panic Station' live, you'll need a trumpet player too, won't you? Or just programme that part in advance? Dominic: Hmmm… Yes, you can programme it, but it's still very different from the real thing. We want to play live with a real brass band, and we're going to perform with a real chorus on 'Survival'. Maybe we'll do a few small shows before the album is released, focusing on those kinds of performances. If it happens, we definitely want to use real musicians. All the trumpet players, all the chorus members, all the brass bands, all the strings. We might not be able to tour the world with it, but if it's financially feasible with a small production, I'd love to do some of those as special shows.

Translator's Note: Dom coming into that hotel in Shoreditch like a cool motherfucker ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Part 2 of the relay interview will be Matt Bellamy and was released on the November 2012 issue of INROCK. Luckily, I've already bought it alongside with this current issue. Unfortunately, there is also a Part 3 to this relay interview, and now I have go find the December 2012 issue that covers Chris' interview.

[pinkfloydmuser]

Y’ALL I GOT SOME MUSE THEMED MACRAME BRACELETS

(Prepare for some self promotion people. Sadly for the introvert that doesn’t like to brag, it’s the only way 🥲)

These adjustable (and customisable) bracelets just hit the store. Made with macrame cord and sparkly, delicate glass beads. I love the way the beads catch sunlight - it's like having a rainbow on your wrist!!

Some options already available with chosen words and colours are-

The 2nd Law (with black, pink and green)

JFK Defector (with green and gold)

The Resistance (with metallic/rainbow sheen blue and gold)

Ruled By Secrecy (with milky red magenta and rainbow sheen black)

Absolution (with blue, white, grey and gold)

I plan to have more ready designs up soon, but if you have a song/album/lyric/phrase and colours you would love in mind, there is an option for a custom bracelet :D

[laromp3]

Panic Station - Muse

[glass-needles-and-futurisms]

I keep thinking back to Muse playing Survival at the closing ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympics, and I keep saying that one of these days I'm just gonna spew all my feelings about how it's not just one of my all-time favorite Muse moments, but also a hilarious, if perhaps unintentional, moment of social commentary.

I still remember our postgrad professor showing those same closing ceremonies in class, explaining the not-so-subtle propagandistic purpose the entire spectacle served on the global stage. (For those who don't know, the 2012 Olympics closing ceremonies were essentially a three-hour star-studded tribute to UK music and pop culture.)

Picture this: you just sat through about two hours of the UK's various national exports - One Direction, the Spice Girls, the Pet Shop Boys, George Michael, Ed Sheeran, Annie Lennox, erm, Russell Brand. You've just seen live performances of Bohemian Rhapsody, Imagine, Wonderwall, and Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, alongside tributes to David Bowie and Freddie Mercury. And you still have Queen, Take That and The Who to go after this.

Interestingly, that class glossed over what an afterthought the Muse performance felt like by comparison. You could argue a lot of extenuating circumstances: the controversial reception of Survival as the official London Olympics theme song, the infamous NBC debacle where it inadvertently got cut from the US broadcast of the ceremonies, or the simple fact that this far into the festivities, a fairly straightforward stage performance* by a band with slightly less name recognition than Coldplay was pretty underwhelming.

* Not sure if this is common knowledge, but apparently this performance was mostly playback with the exception of Matt's vocals. Which also makes this an underappreciated entry in the annals of Muse miming shenanigans.

But something becomes very apparent once you actually reach this part of the show: Survival is fucking bananas. I'll never forget that one internet commenter calling it the world's most epic villain song that doesn't know it's a villain song. I mean, just look at the lyrics:

Life's a race / and I am gonna win

And I'll light the fuse / and I'll never lose

And I choose to survive / whatever it takes

You won't pull ahead / I'll keep up the pace

And I'll reveal my strength / to the whole human race

This is how the song starts! You can sort of see the logic behind making it the Olympics theme song. And then it gets weirder from there:

Yes, I am prepared / to stay alive

I won't forgive / the vengeance is mine

And I won't give in / because I choose to thrive

Yeah, I'm gonna wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin

Good grief. No wonder it's called "Survival". The song makes slightly more sense in the thematic context of The 2nd Law, the album it was released on. But on its own it's just.... yeah.

And this performance ramps up the insanity even more by just taking the piss. Between Matt Bellamy peacocking in a sparkly suit and Union Jack t-shirt, the batshit guitar solo, the pyro, the backing choir, and the fact that everything onstage (including the grand piano) is pretty much just for show (and wobbling like mad), Survival feels cheesy and irreverent in a way that makes you suddenly hyper-conscious of how tightly orchestrated everything else you just saw (including the Monty Python and Mr. Bean stuff) was. Remember that this was all broadcast to an international audience of millions.

Pairing the sheer pageantry of the ceremonies thus far with the actual lyrics of Survival kinda puts everything in an uncomfortable new light. Then it dawns on you that you pretty much just watched an accidental three-hour love letter to British imperialism. (Okay maybe that's overselling it a bit but it's still pretty funny.)