Oh lord, please don't let me be misunderstood

[venta]

It's Friday, and it's about 3 o'clock. It's time to go underneath the covers (with the lights out).

I always recommend listening to a cover version without knowing what or who it is, so click on the link before reading ahead...

Link to cover version expired

That was Muse butchering covering The House of the Rising Sun, originally by The Animals.

Last week I posted a cover version I really liked, and almost everyone who commented hated it. So this week I thought I'd post one I don't like, so you can all tell me how good it is ;)

Today's sounds, to me, like a really bad bootleg: a typical Muse swooshing backing track, with the Animals' lyrics dropped over the top with pretty much no regard for how they fit together. Yes, I know, the singing doesn't sound much like Eric Burdon, and does sound quite a lot like Matt Bellamy. But in general, the singing and the backing track don't seem to have anything to do with each other, they're merely happening at the same time.

I admire the attempt to give such a 60s classic the Muse treatment, but I really don't think it worked.

Comments

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that was indeed pretty rubbish. I've never made the effort to get into Muse, should I generally?

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm generally well inclined towards them, but they never quite end up being as good as I want them to be. I've just been listening to someone else's copy of Absolution and the fundamental problem is that everything sounds a bit the same. It's quite a nice same, mind.

onebyone might be the person to ask for specific guidance, as I believe he's a fan.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I really enjoy Muse, but a lot of people don't. There's not much point tracing the influence of Bellamy's classical piano playing on his guitar solos if you don't like all the distortion and the fact that his sound engineer doesn't mute out his breathing.

Two things must you listen to, to decide whether you'll get anything out of Muse.

The first is Album 1, side 1, track 1: Sunburn from Showbiz, which determines whether you have any interest at all in a Baroqued-up group of Radiohead fans.

The second is Plug In Baby, from Origin of Symmetry, which is probably their best 3-and-a-half-minute radio song and fairly representative of their sound. Although the rest of that album is a surprisingly awkward listen at times.

If you get on with either or both of those, listen to Butterflies & Hurricanes (which is very representative of the lethargo-radical messages of the last three albums, like Rage Against the Machine's politics, but replace rage with a growing sense of disquiet) and Hysteria from Absolution; Map of the Problematique from Black Holes and Revelations; and Uprising from The Resistance, then other things at random.

The quieter song to which Gemlad referred is Unintended on Showbiz, Endlessly on Absolution, etc.

Black Holes and Revelations is a bit prog-rock for my tastes, but if gig attendance is anything to go by then there are people who like Muse's later stuff more than their first 3 albums. Can't say I empathise, but if you suspect you may be the kind of person who makes a day-trip to the Reading festival at 7pm to catch the top three bands on the main stage, it might be best to start with Starlight and Knights of Cydonia.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

One thing I will say for Starlight, actually, is that if Muse have made one contribution to rock music, it's that they've proved that your basic stadium-going supergroup-watching numpty can clap a triplet every other bar.