I've finally got to listen to The Wow! Signal in full today in my car. Twice. And it slaps. It's definitely one of Muse's best albums and it shows. I love it to bits already and wouldn't hesitate to go see them next year if the opportunity ever comes up I wish I didn't have to go to two MCR concerts in November this year
To Musers who only focus on the music and technique and nothing else, of course there are a lot of things to like and not like about The Wow! Signal. But that's for their own personal reasons.
But I feel like it's a disservice to the album itself if you choose NOT to know about how the album even came to be. How the music that we're enjoying right now, came from a dark period of Matt's life.
It's one thing to have seen that there were things happening behind the scenes earlier this year, when Muse suddenly cancelled their shows not only for Abu Dhabi, but also South Africa and India. There were mixed reactions from the fans from that sudden announcement, but I felt that there was a hell of a good reason for them to do that. Especially when it came after that small incident weeks earlier back then.
Now that Matt is sharing some more of what had happened in his life over the past year in the latest NME interview, all I felt was this horror of realising that what I suspected back then and had even talked about to other Musers was not only close to the target, but that it was far worse than any of us would have imagined Matt would go through as a father and husband.
I have heard and seen more than a few times on Tumblr, Discord, and Reddit alike in how Matt's divorce era was going to make the best Muse album yet. Matt had even lampshaded it and both him and the fans turned out to be right about it. But just because it was right, doesn't mean it should feel right. In that dark period of Matt's life, when he was going through those months of being the sole, responsible parent to his kids while Elle was basically absent, the once stable life that he had was gone. The wife he loved was no longer like the woman he once thought he knew. His two youngest kids were still so young to be going through that turmoil in their lives. He felt alone and confused, and he was feeling old and tired of going through these painful heartbreaks.
Even though there is some truth that artists who go through a dark period of their lives are able to produce great works of art and music, that doesn't answer in why it is like that. That doesn't answer what compelled them to do so.
And the answer for that? They needed to feel hope.
Matt wrote the songs that came to be The Wow! Signal because in that darkest period of his life, he wrote those songs with a sense of hope that he would see the light at the end of the tunnel. That he would be able to overcome this darkness, to allow himself to grieve for what was lost and to see what he still had with him.
And he remembered again, of what it was like when he was a teenager when he first started out. He remembered what it was like to live for music, that he could still create music to express himself, that music allowed him to let his emotions be set free.
Most of all, he remembered that he isn't alone at all. He still had his immediate family, he still had Dom and Chris, he still had friends. And most of all, he still remembered that Muse have fans who wouldn't hesitate to rally around him and give him hope and support. The fanbase still being here for Muse is something that he doesn't ever want to take for granted.
I want to thank Dom and Chris for being there for Matt, just as he had been there for them in their darkest period of their lives. They stuck together through thick and thin, and the band is a reminder to Matt of what a long-living, stable marriage is actually like.
I want to thank Dan for helping to produce The Wow! Signal. The level of trust that Muse had to allow Dan to produce the album for them rather than relying on self-producing it speaks for itself. He helped to push Matt and his bandmates out of their comfort zones and to listen when told that they could do better, and they have risen up to that challenge and achieved it.
I want to thank, oddly enough, Chris Martin for helping Matt to create what came to be 'Hush'. I know a lot of Musers shat on 'Hush' due to the fact that it was a collab song with Ellie Goulding. But 'Hush' wasn't just a collab song that came out of the blue, it was a song eventually came to existence because of Matt's friendship with Chris Martin. 'Hush' was his answer to Chris to show that he did read the book that Chris gave to him as a Christmas present. That he knew what Chris was hinting to him at. That he actually took his advice and took that risk to create a collaboration with Ellie when the opportunity came by chance. To me, it's amazing that Muse took the step towards trying something that they've never done before.
So is The Wow! Signal amazing, after you know the story of how it came to be? Yeah, it's truly amazing. It's an album where you could feel Matt believing in hope. A hope that whatever comes to him, he can and will eventually overcome it.
Hexagons feels like flying through the universe on a gigantic spaceship with a mission to save your entire species but you have conflicted inner feelings cuz you’re sent out by you planet’s evil dictator and you don’t want to sacrifice yourself for the people there yet you still want to save your loved one or smth
matt freezing his tits off walking through a polar desert wilderness every time he sings “polar desert wilderness” is peak cinema 10/10 visual storytelling
romaincrisis
2087
amandla
turnnoffyourmind
vaporwave
origamiaround
