For any Muse who might get frustrated about how the fandom seems to always be throwing a tantrum about new Muse songs and how much they dislike Muse's 'new directions', just a gentle assurance that the fandom has always been like this.
They were really not fond of Black Holes and Revelations when it came out, some of them didn't even believe Supermassive Black Hole was a real song. They thought it was a joke. Muse, their beloved metal-leaning hard rock band, going glitz, glam and electro? Ignoring the fact that their main man just built a whole synthesizer into his electric guitars (the XY Kaoss pad), Muse and electronic? Ignoring the arp synth on Bliss, Muse and electronic?
Supermassive Black Hole was the first single on BHAR, and the old fans were aghast. Hated it. Then when Twilight used the song and brought Muse to the attention of... well. Teenage girls, essentially, it again split the fandom into the old heads (the real, gritty rock fans, you hear me) and the airheaded dumb teenage girls that only knew them through Twilight and silly romance novels. (I hope you understand these aren't my words. It's just... fucking 2006. The 00s were horrible like that.)
They also hated Take A Bow. Despite the fact that Muse had been using the opening synth progression as an intro to Space Dementia live throughout the Absolution tour, they disliked the synths on it. They hated Invincible.
And just to balance things out, Muse in the meanwhile were having a blast: Matt doing his alien schtick in interviews, jetsetting across Europe from headline gigs and festivals to award shows, they occasionally got to take charter flights and stuff, and they were in an interesting place musically where their sound was expanding, taking inspiration from nightclub indie music like LCD Soundsystem and bussing with the Strokes (they've said Starlight was inspired by them), working up to playing some of the biggest arena and even stadium gigs of their lives. 2006 Reading Festival, their first Reading headline. Huge moment for Muse. 2007, two sold out nights at the 90,000 capacity new Wembley. All this is to say, if Muse hadn't made Black Holes the album they did, there's no way they'd be nearly as successful as they are today. So don't doubt it and don't feel bad for them! But the Muse fandom is passionate, and so you maybe heard the naysayers louder than you would with most band fandoms.
But were there detractors before Black Holes? Might surprise you, but yes! And I'm not talking about Pitchfork and the rest of the press!
This will make no sense in 2025's musical landscape and understanding of rock and guitar music, but fans hated Time Is Running Out. I've seen those old Muse messageboard threads, they did Not hold back. TIRO was a 'pop song', and so it was Bad. It was Muse selling out. Fans had heard quite a few of these songs well before release, and Muse were threatening to go 'more prog' on their third album, and it threw their OOS-loving fans a little. (Check out this interview from the archives with then-BBC Radio 1's Steve Lamacq for a sense of what was going on).
So don't worry about who hates Thought Contagion or whether fans inexplicably dislike Will Of The People, an album so classically Muse that I am forced to wonder whether the fans that dislike it and I are actually thinking about the same band when refer to them. It's been like this on The Resistance (god, they hated the symphonic bits, strings used to really rile up the anti-sentimental rock fandom. Riffs and RIFFS ONLY you hear me?), The 2nd Law got So Much Hate for Muse embracing electronic music (again, not new....) and working with Skrillex, it was the whole reason the 'back to basics, back to our rock roots' idea even popped into the band's head when going in to make Drones. Matt's talked about the well, fan pressure to sound a certain way on the song Pressure, and Simulation Theory itself got a lot of agitated fan responses.
The interesting thing with Muse is that despite it all, the reason why they are still such a widely loved band is that people come around to their albums. At the end of the day, it is fantastic music. Well written, incredibly forward-thinking and genre-blending. Fans' love for Muse keeps them giving the newer albums another chance, and you will often see this in most Muse Youtube comment sections (or other places), there are many comments about how their songs grew on fans. They like them after a few listens. It's just about trusting the band to be good at their job and make incredible music, and I can't give up on Musers despite all my above qualms because they do still have that love and trust. Don't worry about it.
Also, about BHAR specifically (and this is me citing some sources), someone asked about it on the Muse reddit a little while ago and it'll basically confirm what I just told you. Very interesting insight into the place rock music occupied in popular music at the time (in opposition to other genres, the rebellion genre if you will, as opposed to Just Another Popular Genre. That's a whole post in itself). Don't worry about it.
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