#Writing about Music

[sunburnacoustic]

@origin-of-symmetryy's poll about the Muse album closers got me thinking (and frankly, the addition under their poll was getting ridiculously long, and so I've decided to make a new post), Muse are really good at album closers. Really good. Of course, the order of songs on an album is something most musicians will spend some time thinking about, but usually outside of concept albums, what songs close the albums don’t really matter as much. Sometimes they’re coincidentally great; the best of the album closers are ones that will leave you sitting in silence for a minute just thinking about what you’ve just heard. (There’s an English band called Yard Act who closed their debut album The Overload with, “It’s not like there’s gonna be nothing, is there?” And then there's silence; the album's over. And the whole song itself was in short, about humanity and people being people, and so I did sit and think about the album for a minute, it was great.)

Muse are like that. Their album closers are really meant to be closers. It's almost like their shows: the albums are paced out in such a way that you're being taken on a journey listening to them, and you're not just going to have all the energetic stuff at once, and you won't just have the chilled out, relaxed or downtempo songs in one lump. We've all definitely marveled right here on Museblr about the transition on Absolution from Hysteria -> Blackout -> Butterflies & Hurricanes. Those are not exactly similar songs, but Muse know how to make it work.

All this is to say, Muse certainly know how to bring the rollercoaster down to a stop at the end of an album, both musically and emotionally/thematically. Think of Megalomania, Ruled by Secrecy, Exogenesis Symphony, Isolated System, Drones, The Void, even Glorious if you're willing to consider the extended version of BHAR. Musically, they're a bit more chilling, emotionally usually less settled, kinda despondent, they seem to almost close with a message of 'it's all kind of messed up. It doesn't matter, you see? They're fucked up. We all are.' Or 'See? That's how everything goes wrong' (depending on which album you're listening to).

The only album I would say does not seem to have a thematic intention behind it is Showbiz, but Hate This And I'll Love You does have a certain grandiose element to its outro that makes it a perfect show closer; the brash little bow taken at the end of what they know is an album well done. Thematically I can only surmise: 'try hating this. We dare you to. You see the current musical landscape? What do you think of it? We are Muse. We are about to change everything; destroy the status quo. Stay tuned.'

To my mind at least, here's how the other album closers relate to the themes of the records: Origin of Symmetry is partly about human connection, observed through its relationship to technology (New Born, Screenager, Plug In Baby), occasionally religion (Hyper Music, Megalomania, or sometimes mysticism.

Throughout the album, Matt has explored themes of becoming distant from other people, loneliness, reliance on technology (and erm, sex robots I guess), paranoia, love, hope, the feeling of being perceived. Megalomania seems to come down from the heightened emotions, whether negative or positive, turns despondent and challenges a God about why people should even bother going through it all: why love? Why trust? Why procreate and restart the whole cycle again? It's bringing it all back down to earth to close out the album. And of course, musically too, that song sounds pessimistic. Come on.

Absolution: Matt and Dom have talked about how this album was less about actual religion, but more about their own personal absolutions: freeing themselves through music. The religious themes are allegorical, the album's motivations are more existential, personal and heightened emotionally: we're dealing with themes of self-worth, paranoia, relationships, and more of that search for meaning that we saw glimpses of in Origin Of Symmetry.

At the end of it all comes Ruled By Secrecy, with the protagonist realising that no matter how hard they try, a lot of their own life is beyond their control. Despite all the hopes, fears, anxieties about who you are, your future and your own death; no matter how hard you try to fight it, it is out of your power, and no one knows who's in control. A final fight-or-flight at the end of the album that concludes, it doesn't matter. There's nothing you can do. Can't fight it. And of course, that dark, echoing, reverb-drenched piano arpeggio is haunting and will linger in your mind well after Dom's last cymbal crash.

Black Holes and Revelations: Look, I think the human spirit and connection is such a central theme to Matt Bellamy's writing that I ought to stop mentioning it because here too I will go 'ditto'. It's the human emotional spectrum: love, loss, anxiety, needing control of your life, loneliness; but this time explored through the lens of politics, of conspiracy and paranoia, extraterrestrialism, but drawing those connections back to feeling alienated rather than literal alien stuff (save that for the interviews ;) )

I think Knights is definitely a change in direction from Muse's previous few closers in that there's no way you could call it downtempo, but it works for the same reasons that it is Muse's staple set closer: it goes out on a high. It acknowledges how real our fears are, but also how silly they can seem spoken out loud (or, say, sung out loud on a record or in concert with 90,000 people), and says, you know what. We can still wear silly hats and boots, play space cowboy riffs and sing anthems about it. (I know this is not the exact meaning of the song, but that's the meaning I get from it being placed at the end of the album, if you see my distinction). Glorious, on the other hand, is a more classic mellow Muse album closer (and would've definitely worked too), but more optimistic and taking comfort in love. Still as much of a full-stop as any previous closers. See when I say this is a band that knows what an album closer is!

The Resistance: Muse's dystopian thriller, 54 minutes of exploring the personal in the context of the global, set against a backdrop of strife, tensions, big ideas about the geopolitics of the world, and of course, a reflection on the books and media Matt had consumed around the time of this album. Against this backdrop, Exogenesis Symphony seems to run parallel to the album itself, a 3-part story exploring the hubris of thinking that the only way of saving humanity from all its problems was the nuclear option (figuratively): to begin life on a new planet, only to conclude that we're doomed to repeat our old habits and fail, hinting that our only real chance is to band together to save ourselves and what we have right now. Muse would go on to employ a similar 'parallel what-if' storyline later too on The Globalist. Anyway, for ending with a message insinuating peace as the only option to avoid destruction, that's a classic Muse album closer.

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.

Now, Drones! An album exploring the pitfalls of artificial intelligence in the military sphere, on the surface about warfare, but underneath, a much more human and emotional journey undertaken by a protagonist not to lose their human spirit, their sense of what is right and will to stand up for their rights. A mix of the personal and political. Muse's first explicit concept album.

The song Drones delves into the dystopia, separate from the timeline of the album where the protagonist (Mary) freed themself, returned home to their loved ones, stopped being an emotionless drone and discovered love again, only to retire away from all the pain in order to heal. It's a proper summariser of a track, and so a fitting album closer: you don't need to look your victims in the eyes anymore, you don't have to fight your own sense of decency and humanity: 'now you can kill from the comfort of your home with drones'. I also think having many Matt voices with none of them ever taking the role of lead singer is a sly little summary of the album too: you're all just voices in the choir, you can't tell any of them apart. You're faceless. But I suppose, also the fact that you're able to discern meaning from this chorus of voices that is not always singing in unison, that conveys the strength of working together to overcome adversity? All album themes. Anyway, any song that closes the album with 'Aaaa-men.' is a proper album closer, cheers Matt!

Simulation Theory (standard version, because the deluxe doesn't have new songs, just other versions of the existing ones): the darkness has finally lifted from Matt's life. Bouncing back from the album meant to convey emotional deadness (and Matt's breakup album), Matt's found love, robots and nostalgia, and by god he was going to make it known! Even through the sci-fi, this album is still exploring the ramifications of the AI powering decisions that impact all our lives: this album explores the consequences of algorithms, social media and peer pressure, spreading misinformation and chaos, but also the humanity that connects us all that the computers can never really nail down. That's where the album closer The Void comes in: statistical modelling may have you believing that everyone is just a number to fit along a neat mathematical line, that anyone outside the norm is unaccounted for, erased, alone, estranged; that individual people cannot have an impact: they're wrong. Just for that line, this is a cracker of a closing song. Ending with Matt's now-trademark hope, belief in humanity and optimism. And yes, yet another emotional, downtempo Muse album closer that'll leave you thinking and feeling things for a while.

Will Of The People: Now this one is so interesting to me. On an album exploring the current landscape: near-apocalyptic scenes in terms of the environment, global public health, economy, civil unrest and failures of public leadership, only a Muse album could really do the scene justice. So where does We Are Fucking Fucked fit in? It's so different from traditional Muse album closers. Where's that optimism and fighting spirit Matt says he simply cannot write without? I don't think I can say it better than Matt's said it himself:

[W]henever someone creates a film or a book that ends on a sort of tragedy of some kind, or ends on something bad, what happens is, it leaves the viewer or the listener in a state where they can’t help but feel compelled to do something about creating an equilibrium that isn’t there. When I was studying films briefly, that’s what someone told me: If you wanna do something where you leave it to the actual person who’s watching or reading or consuming the art… if you leave them in a state with an unhappy ending … they can walk away from it and go, “Maybe I need to do something about this.” So that was one of the reasons why I put “We Are Fucking Fucked” at the very end. Hopefully people come away from it and go like, “Well, are we? I don’t know about that. Maybe I’ll do this…”

And what did lie at the end of the album? A Muse concert? Perhaps something bigger: a real-life push for justice and peace? I love the concept of WAFF as an album closer, that's a brilliant concept.

What do you guys think?

[transhuman-priestess]

I know I’ve posted this song before but it changed my brain chemistry permanently.

It’s one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. It’s a song about love, but it isn’t a love song. A caring song, if you will.

It’s presented as one side of a dialogue between the singer and an unnamed friend, perhaps lover, who apparently has depression. The chorus is not the title, but instead “I’m gonna leave it all out there to dry, I’m gonna leave it all out there”, the singer tries in so many ways to tell the listener that they’re going to make it through their hard times, as in the opening lines, “I’m alright today/you’re gonna find a way to cross and you’re gonna get there.”

As the song goes on the encouragements become more florid, more poetic. The singer urges the listener to open themselves up, “You put walls around your heart to try to lock it in.”

In the bridge the song takes undergoes its largest structural shift, most of the instrumentation drops out, and only the drums and a mournful horn section remain. The last line of the bridge shows the singer trying to reach out, to relate, “everybody wants the same/yeah, everybody wants the same thing” before returning to the chorus, again, “I’m gonna leave it all out there to dry/Im gonna leave it all out there”

But then a new chorus ends the song, repeating five times rather than the usual four, “cause you worry me/you worry me/you worry me/you worry me/you worry me”, the song ends with the last word, very abruptly, as if either the message has finally gotten through, or perhaps was too late.

It’s a masterful use of structure and lyrics to tell a simple, universal story. It’s stuck with me for years now. I can’t shake it. Anyway, if you haven’t, go listen to it.

[lostextosquenadiequiereleer]

RENACER.

Terminé el ciclo de mi página de difusión hace más de dos años cuando me retiré, en ese entonces de forma momentánea, y hace más de un año de forma definitiva. Las verdaderas razones quizás no las llegue a revelar nunca de manera abierta. Quizás lo lleguen a saber quiénes lean el libro (cuando éste se publique) que en estos momentos aún escribo. Fue la única manera en que logré sacar de mi sistema esa etapa tan dolorosa para mi.

En este periodo de "descanso" pensé en todo lo que hice mal y qué pude haber hecho mejor. Pensé en lo mal que me hizo auto imponerme tantas reglas, pues eso hizo que mucha gente se aprovechará de mi buena voluntad. Me concentré en todo lo malo, que volví a deprimirme, me enfermé de muchas cosas y terminé en un quirófano deseando ya no despertar.

Cuando recobré la consciencia, las primeras palabras que escuché antes de que llegaran los médicos fueron: "No has terminado. Ya sabes qué hacer." (Sigo preguntándome de quién era esa voz que escuchaba en mi cabeza)

Después de los primeros días en el hospital, un par de canciones me ayudaron a comenzar mi proceso de sanación. A partir de ahí, comenzaron a aparecer todos los buenos momentos que he pasado en esos más de diez años de conciertos. Y pensé en todo lo que me dejaron esas experiencias: Una enseñanza impresionante.

En este periodo de descanso cambiaron muchas cosas en mí, pero hay otras que nunca cambiarán. Como mi amor eterno por la música.

Hace un par de meses re-conecté con esa sensación de maravillarme cuando conozco artistas nuevos, y de que prefiero estar en lugares pequeños e íntimos, a lugares en donde tanto artistas como público, le faltan al respetó a la música.

Re-conecté con esa sensación de ver artistas desconocidos con sus caritas de felicidad, casi al borde del llanto, porque el evento en dónde se presentaban, a pesar de no hacer mucho ruido, lograban tener "casa llena" con gente que nunca habían visto, pero que estaban ahí para prestarles sus oídos y conocer su Arte.

Re-conecté con la sensación de estar en dónde quieres estar, y no en dónde debes estar. de estar con amigos que valoran tu presencia, y no buscan sacar provecho de absolutamente nada.

Re-conecté con esa parte de mi que creí muerta. Pero no es que estuviera muerta, era simplemente que cumplía un ciclo, pero estaba lista para volver de las cenizas. Y ya concretamente, ¿A qué quiero llegar con todo lo que estoy diciendo? A decir con mucha ilusión que ¡Estoy de vuelta!

Estoy listo para volver a apoyar con todo mi amor a Artistas Indie que sueñan con llevar su Arte a nuevos rumbos. Vuelvo para apoyar de formas diferentes a las que acostumbraba. Pero siempre con el mismo respeto y admiración que el primer día.

Vuelvo y espero quedarme por muchos años más.

[basilepesso]

The Wallflowers, One Headlight, 1 997

31 000 commentaires et 220 millions de vues pour cette remarquable chanson des Wallflowers, groupe du fils de Dylan, Jakob et sa beauté ; chanson sur laquelle j'ai déjà écrit donc je ne le refais pas. J'oriente simplement vers ce commentaire au milieu d'autres étonnants comme celui d'un fils ayant fait jouer cette chanson à son père atteint d'Alzheimer, père qui soudain se souvint de toute la chanson et put la jouer parfaitement. Cet autre commentaire est également remarquable, mettez-le en traduction si vous ne comprenez pas. La vie et l'amour peuvent être sublimes pour des décennies si l'on ne s'amuse pas à saboter l'or qu'on a entre les mains...

BP.  

>>>

"This song takes me back to 97, I was in the waiting room as my wife was rushed in for an emergency c section, never been so scared in my life, 27 and facing losing my best friend and my baby, this started playing and I focused on the tune, it helped, here I am again 26 years later still married to my best friend and our daughter now has kids of her own, where did the last 26 years go ? Hearing this makes me feel like I’m back in my 20’s.  A timeless classic."

The Wallflowers, One Headlight

[frankierotwinkdeath]

Y’all want Taylor Swift to be gay so bad but you won’t even write femslash about her

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[theoldaeroplane]

worried that thing you put in your art or writing or game or music is too self-indulgent, too self-referential, too niche for anyone but yourself? fear not! you can do whatever you want forever. and you should.

[saixria]

Somewhere in Apollo’s hospital on Olympus

[castielsprostate]

having talented friends is so wild!!!!!! like. YOU!!!!!!!!!! YOU made THAT. YOU DID THAT?!?!?!?! YOU created!!!! THAT!!!!!!!!!!! WOAH!!!!!! praise!!!!!!!! praise for one thousand years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[noknowshame]

always a fun time when real life people are doomed by their own narratives. like guys you know it doesn’t have to be like this right? this isn’t a stageplay the foreshadowing isn’t real until you make it real

[morganbritton132]

Just remember this idea I had for a fic where Steve’s dad worked in marketing and made jiggles for commercials so they had a full music studio in their house.

The local music store had a section where local artists can sell cassettes. It’s mostly poorly recorded country music from The Hideout’s open mic night, but Corroded Coffin is there too. Eddie practically stalks the shelf to see if anyone buys their music. No one ever does (except for Gareth’s mom).

Then one day, Eddie goes into the shop after work to see if any of CC’s stock is gone, and sees a new tape there. No artist name. No song titles. Just a slip of paper stuck into the case with a hand drawn rose on it.

Eddie buys it and even though it’s not his typical type of music, falls absolutely in love with the voice on the tape. He loves the music. The production quality. The way sadness seeps into every corner of side A and B.

He goes back to the record shop and asks who left the tape, but the employee has no idea. They think someone just stuck it there without permission and have no idea who they’re supposed to pay for the sale.

Two more tapes show up over the next month with a different drawn flower on it, each sadder than the last. The artist is clearly going through something. Eddie still has no idea who they are and is now stalking the shelf not just to see if his own music is selling (it’s not).

He’s in full investigation mode and it’s annoying all of his friends. He needs to know who this person is because he’s a little in love with them and also a little worried about them. It’s really sad music.

Meanwhile, Steve is just trying to process the end of his relationship with Nancy in the only way he can think of.

[dootznbootz]

Sorry, not sorry but I see this too often and it bothers me :)

Before people get mad: Notice how I put “Me and Penelope fans” there? I know there's others. this ain't about you <3

edit: This is about how people in the fandom prioritize Odysseus and Telemachus (and even Diomedes, who is not in the Odyssey) despite the Odyssey also being HER story as well. I've seen many fics about Odysseus and Telemachus in their youth, and never really seen that for Penelope.

[transhuman-priestess]

Something I have to regularly remind myself of as an artist (mostly writing and music) is that it’s okay to not be actively producing something all the time.

I beat myself up over opening a window in Logic and just dicking around with sounds before closing it, but that’s how you learn stuff. The YouTube/Patreon-industrial complex has kind of poisoned my brain.

For me, writing, music, and art are hobbies. I have a day job. And even if you are a working artist, it’s still okay. You’re not a bad artist because you’re not putting out “content” every 5 minutes.

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[basilepesso]

Pearl Jam, Go, 1 993

Fantastique ouverture du remarquable Vs de Pearl Jam (1 993). Avec ce chef d'oeuvre uppercutien qui commence aussi brillamment et violemment qu'il s'achève, le groupe de Seattle sortait d'un grunge lyrique parfois pesant, cousin d'Alice in Chains et de Screaming Trees (autres groupes grunge de Seattle ou de la région de l'état de Washington autour de Seattle), style pearl jamien largement surestimé (base de leur premier album culte, Ten, et son célèbre single Alive) et offrait leur meilleur album, un niveau que le groupe ne dépassera jamais sauf sur certains éclairs y compris solo pour Eddie Veder et la bande originale d'Into the Wild, notamment son single Society. De Seattle il n'est plus tant question sur la scène artistique hype. On ne sait pas quelle effervescence a piqué la froide ville du Nord-Ouest des USA dans les 90's, puisqu'aux groupes nommés s'ajoute évidemment Nirvana puis les Foo Fighters, mais aussi Soundgarden, et en plus pop/rock, The Posies. Dans les 2 000's, la ville à la tour emblématique (The Space Needle) qui rappelle plus ou moins celle d'Osaka (la Tsūtenkaku) a été l'effigie de la souvent remarquable série médicale Grey's Anatomy. Basile Pesso, 4 février 2 023, 1e diffusion ce jour-là (Fb) Pearl Jam, Go

[sporesgalaxy]

TWO THANGS

when I say "love" with no descriptors, I don't mean romantic by default

when I say "art" with no descriptors, I don't mean visual by default