Day 9: The Void - Muse
Song: The Void
Artist: Muse
Jan 9
Jan 9
In an attempt to decompress after work and my mood being what it is I decided to start a show I've been putting off. When it comes to visual media I am a sucker for fresh and unique dystopian stories. Which just so happens to be one of the many, infinite reasons why Muse, The Kings Of Dystopia, are my all time favorite band.
There are literally not enough words in all the languages of the world to full express how much I love this band. Muse are a well.. Muse. The trio hailed from Teignmouth, England and began their journey together in 1994. Muse is an entity all their own in terms of musical style, panache, and Matt's phobia of being impregnated by aliens.
"The Void" is featured on Muse's newest album "Simulation Theory" which is essentially: If Muse wrote the entirety of 80's Scifi film soundtracks. Their music videos for this album actually tell a cohesive story that, while I am still trying to figure out the perfect order to watch, all contain loads of easter eggs pertaining to essentially every cult 1980's scifi movie.
The song begins with an eerie howl of wind as a sequence of electronic and futuristic (in the eyes of 1984) tones. We're joined with Matt's vocal which is whispy and full of air. Paired with a synthesized background vocal it sounds both ghostly and robotic. We build with the addition of bass for just a short time until the bass cuts out and we have orchestral strings as a replacement. Musically the song gets more and more electronic as we journey forward, much like society. What I find really interesting, however, is our last minute the electronic music underneath cuts out and is replaced by a piano playing the same sequence we heard in the beginning. As was evident in my last post, I find the subtle musical touches to be very instrumental (pun intended) to the underlying meaning of the song. By replacing the technology heavy instrumentals with a lone piano it's as if we are returning to humanity, warm and alive, after living in a society that, at the start, is very cold and robotic in nature. The addition of the dark and distorted bass adds the question, are they really free from that society? Matt's somber vocal melody feeds into that notion but I like to think of the distorted bass as essentially the tech becoming obsolete and fading into... wait for it.. the void.
Stepping into our lyrics, which are incredibly straight forward for Muse, we have a lot of repetition not just in the chorus either. Whenever I hear repetition in the verses I instantly feel like our singer is trying to convince someone of something, whether that be themselves or those around them. In the case of "The Void" I believe it is a touch of both.
"They'll say the sun is dying"
"They'll say, no one will find us
"They're wrong"
There are literally not enough words in all the languages of the world to full express how much I love this band. Muse are a well.. Muse. The trio hailed from Teignmouth, England and began their journey together in 1994. Muse is an entity all their own in terms of musical style, panache, and Matt's phobia of being impregnated by aliens.
"The Void" is featured on Muse's newest album "Simulation Theory" which is essentially: If Muse wrote the entirety of 80's Scifi film soundtracks. Their music videos for this album actually tell a cohesive story that, while I am still trying to figure out the perfect order to watch, all contain loads of easter eggs pertaining to essentially every cult 1980's scifi movie.
The song begins with an eerie howl of wind as a sequence of electronic and futuristic (in the eyes of 1984) tones. We're joined with Matt's vocal which is whispy and full of air. Paired with a synthesized background vocal it sounds both ghostly and robotic. We build with the addition of bass for just a short time until the bass cuts out and we have orchestral strings as a replacement. Musically the song gets more and more electronic as we journey forward, much like society. What I find really interesting, however, is our last minute the electronic music underneath cuts out and is replaced by a piano playing the same sequence we heard in the beginning. As was evident in my last post, I find the subtle musical touches to be very instrumental (pun intended) to the underlying meaning of the song. By replacing the technology heavy instrumentals with a lone piano it's as if we are returning to humanity, warm and alive, after living in a society that, at the start, is very cold and robotic in nature. The addition of the dark and distorted bass adds the question, are they really free from that society? Matt's somber vocal melody feeds into that notion but I like to think of the distorted bass as essentially the tech becoming obsolete and fading into... wait for it.. the void.
Stepping into our lyrics, which are incredibly straight forward for Muse, we have a lot of repetition not just in the chorus either. Whenever I hear repetition in the verses I instantly feel like our singer is trying to convince someone of something, whether that be themselves or those around them. In the case of "The Void" I believe it is a touch of both.
"They'll say, no one can see us
That we're estranged and all alone
That we're estranged and all alone
they believe nothing can reach us
And pull us out of the boundless gloom"
"They'll say the sun is dying"
"They'll say, no one will find us
That we're estranged and all alone
they believe nothing can reach us
And pull us out of the boundless gloom""They're wrong"
Matt sings the lyric: "They're wrong" 18 times in the duration of this song. It's incredibly difficult to have that much repetition of a lyric and not, for lack of a better term, sound repetitive. The first chorus (6 times each chorus) he sings the phrase he comes in strong, aggressive, confident. His second time through he is more tepid, not unsure of himself, but not as if he is about to fight. The third and final time he sings is strong and confident but this time around the aggression is replaced with pain, as if something was lost. This next bit could be me reading way too much into it but this is music and lyrics as written by Matthew James Bellamy and that conspiracy theorist cannot be trusted with coincidence like this. As I stated above he sings 6 "They're wrong" per chorus and sings the chorus 3 times.. which leaves us with 666 or as it is commonly referred to as: the number of the beast. In this instance I think of the beast as a metaphor for the technological future that has rendered true humanity virtually nonexistent.
Lyric that attacked me:
"The fragile can't be saved
and the cold, it will devour us
And we won't rise up and slay giants"
Song Color: Chrome and blinking red
Mood: Lost
Lyric that attacked me:
"The fragile can't be saved
and the cold, it will devour us
And we won't rise up and slay giants"
Song Color: Chrome and blinking red
Mood: Lost
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