THE RESISTANCE of Muse and the bane of Progrock

Part 1: Genesis

Even before its release, The Resistance, Muse’s 5th studio album, has already been half-jinxed by music critics in blogs and reviews. Some seem to have had it with Matthew Bellamy’s “absurd” lyricism and his fixation with conspiracy theories, while some still go hazy-eyed with awe and bewilderment with the band’s undeniable virtuosic musicality and their continuous effort to push the envelope. However, a lot of the negative points raised by the critics/bloggers were due to Muse’s apparent “unoriginality” for sounding like Queen, Depeche Mode, Blondie, or a wailing Bach (one even mentioned Nelly Furtado), in a song or two of The Resistance.

And five or so years ago, the favorite Muse peg was Radiohead.

Now this is what I don’t understand. Though quite simplistic to say, Muse is essentially a progressive-rock band. And for the sake of the neophytes, Progressive-Rock is a sub-genre of Rock music that incorporates a myriad of elements including jazz, classical, world, psychedelic, etc. generally resulting in a sound that is melodious and at the same time dissonant. So I just don’t get it why all these comparisons with other bands and artists are being made and being taken negatively against Muse—when “sounding like other artists” obviously comes with the territory? Coming from a critics’ point of view though, it is understandable, and indeed most of the time inevitable, to cite other more known bands to help the reader sonically visualize. But to declare that The Resistance was a rip-off of some other band’s/singer’s/composer’s style is downright immature and laughable.

Which brings to mind one of my über-favorite sci-fi films, The Matrix, which also got mixed reviews – the lashings primarily aimed at the movie’s “borrowing” of concepts from Alice in Wonderland, the Bible, Hinduism and Quantum Physics. What perhaps these originality-obsessed fundamentalists failed to see was the artistry of how the Wachowski Brothers wove together all those grand theories and faiths into one insightful quilt of a unified and contemporary worldview – which in essence, is another form of originality. Similarly, if you think about it, a huge chunk of what we now know— what we perceive, even our opinions—are either mere re-hashes or appropriations derived from those who came before us. Before Charles Darwin had published his Theory of Evolution, Aristotle already guessed that humans may have progressed from lesser forms of life; it’s just sad that people accuse Muse of copying Radiohead (among others), simply because Muse shares the same sensibilities as these other bands.

The thing is, progressive-rock, though an eclectic brand of music, is not everyone’s cup of tea. Experimentation, peculiarity and ambiguity are ideas that are not easy to digest. And just like an exotic food, what’s been happening to The Resistance, given its added publicity now (thanks to Twilight and MTV), is that people are picking out only the parts that they are familiar to eat then ends up dissatisfied because it’s the same morsel of the same meat that they’ve been used to eating and then wrongly blames it on the chef. To appreciate Muse—in fact to appreciate Progrock, one must put on Gestalt ears and open one’s mind because with this genre of music, the treasure lies in the sum of the parts.

And if you don’t like the effing-dish, just hit McDonald’s.

But I dig Muse. Ever since I heard their song Hysteria back in 2003 on a local rock radio station, I got hooked. I played Absolution almost everyday at home and played it even in the office stereo, much to the awkward annoyance and helplessness of my officemates. Having had classical piano lessons as a kid and growing up to become this grunge-goth, cinephiliac and strange-loving oddball, Muse fitted on me like warm earmuffs against the cold, predictable and generic mainstream music that (still) are being force-fed to us.

I’ll be honest though. I am one of those “elderly” Muse fans who weren’t particularly jovial when 16-year olds suddenly began singing along Starlight, confusing Muse to be an Emo band while drooling on the crooked smile of Edward Cullen. Oh alright, fine, Edward was hot and Twilight the movie may have been my guilty pleasure (it’s hard for us women to resist a mysterious boy’s blood-red lips), but I don’t want my guilty pleasures and my obscure and prized loots to mix because it tends to devaluate the latter.  And perhaps that is also where all this pre-conceived negativity among the critics (or should I say, disgruntled fans?) is largely coming from; now that Muse can be heard on movie soundtracks, just debuted in US television on the recent MTV Awards, and Matt Bellamy has become a Guitar Hero, they’ve officially qualified as sell-outs.

But Muse will always be my muse and I will not let the glitter of their impending fame distract me from seeking out in every album they make the genuine artistry that I had fallen in love with. And after listening to their latest album The Resistance, I tell you all disgruntled Muse fans out there, it’s not yet time to move on.

Part 2: Revelations

The Resistance, as a whole, sounds closer to Absolution—except that they took it to an even more majestic scale. This is perhaps Muse’s most eclectic and experimental album yet.

Rating: 4/5 (because the sound could have been more cohesive, sans Undisclosed Desires)

General Mood: Histrionic. (Jesus Christ Superstar meets Miss Saigon meets 2001 Space Odyssey)

Concept: A forbidden love story set against a backdrop of political unrest; Matt Bellamy said in an interview that he was inspired by Orwell’s 1984 while conceptualizing The Resistance.

The first track, Uprising, is reminiscent of 60’s rockabilly fused with psychedelic hard-rock; think Elvis playing the role of a mass leader in a rock musical. The same theatrical back-up vocals trickle on to parts of Resistance, this time evoking an ebb and tide of atmospheric electro-keyboard melodies, peaking in heavy glam-rock instrumentation.

Undisclosed Desires, to agree with the others, is reminiscent of Depeche Mode, only that it has a more space rock feel to it, heavier and sexier. United States of Eurasia, is perhaps Muse’s most epic song ever—it’s  just a shame people automatically think Queen when they hear other bands use falsettos and big orchestrations, when in fact all these glam-rock stylings are simply descended from theatre and Broadway. The stadium-rock feel of US of E continues with the anthemic Guiding Light.

Unnatural Selection is a throwback to their early, more hardcore Plug-in-Baby days, infused here and there with the symphonic feel of Absolution. MK Ultra reverses the mood by sounding more orchestral like Absolution with the sharp ends of Origin of Symmetry. I Belong to You starts and ends with a jazzy-lounge feel to it, peaking in the middle with heavy-riffs of melodrama.

The Resistance does an explosive exit with a three-part, cinematic symphony called Exogenesis (Overture, Cross-Pollination, Redemption) which combines Muse’s electronic and signature layered instrumentation with a full string-orchestra, and further embellished by Bellamy’s operatic vocal stylings. Aptly titled Exogenesis, besides its allusion to Matt Bellamy’s preoccupation with the Cosmos, this closing symphonic masterpiece—the true gem of The Resistance—also seemingly prognosticates the more daring direction that Muse is going to take in their succeeding albums.