My Top 10 Songs This Week 1983
1 Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse Of The Heart
2 Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton - Islands In The Stream
3 Air Supply - Making Love Out Of Nothing At All
4 David Bowie - Modern Love
5 Spandau Ballet - True
6 Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson - Say Say Say
7 Sheena Easton - Telefone (Long Distance Love Affair)
8 The Police - King Of Pain
9 John Cougar Mellencamp - Crumblin' Down
10 Peabo Bryson/Roberta Flack - Tonight I Celebrate My Love For You
Muse - The Resistance
The over the top, prog-rock histrionics of Devonshire, England’s Muse certainly aren’t for everybody (they certainly are for me), and there seems to be a definite line drawn firmly in the sand between the band’s detractors and their supporters. That line is only bound to get more defined with the release of the trio’s relentlessly theatrical new record, The Resistance, which expands and augments the dramatic, grandiose soundscapes of their previous album, 2006’s hugely successful but equally divisive Black Holes And Revelations.
Muse have never shied away from ambitious songwriting, and in doing so the band has crafted a challenging career arc that saw them going from being called Radiohead knockoffs early on to being accused of aping Queen on their new record. While there are certainly hints within their music to support these accusations, Muse are far too inventive and experimental to get bogged down by platitudinous comparisons, and have usually been two steps ahead of their critics throughout their nearly 15 year career. It seems like their only real goal with each successive album is to find more creative ways to get their sound louder and more massive, which certainly can be a challenge for a three-piece band (they tour with an additional keyboardist to broaden their live sound), but their scope and subject matter has always gravitated towards the celestial, and their sonic boundaries, for better or for worse, are often without limits.
Their musical lives certainly don’t hang in the balance with The Resistance by any means (they will continue to sell out any arena they choose to play in Europe and most of the world), but an experiment like this one shows they are dedicated to, their artistic vision. They are certainly taking chances and not replicating the sound that garnered them the spotlight in the first place. And for that they at least deserve our respect, for this is an album with plenty of pay off. Whether or not the record or the band’s ambition is too large is simply a matter of taste, and ultimately depends on which side of the line in the sand you are on.
