or something.

Our ancient heroes, they are turning to dust

-Muse, “The United States of Eurasia”

I should have made it clearer that I really love Muse.  I mean, obviously: I’m going to the concert, Ticketmaster “convenience” charge and all. In fact, there are only a few things I dislike about Muse.  For one thing, their ballads ♪suuuuuck♫. So, so much.

Thing two is that, despite my searching, I haven’t ever heard the band themselves cop to their obvious Queen influence.  I’m more than willing to be proven wrong, but this quote exemplifies most of Muse’s Queen-related statements that I have seen:

“[D]rummer Dominic Howard tells Spinner that the whole thing ‘just sort of happened.’

‘I’m a big Queen fan and certainly in ‘…Eurasia’ there’s that one chord with the line, ‘there could be only one,’ that sounds Queen-influenced, but that wasn’t overtly done,’ Howard recalls. ‘When you build up all those vocal layers it just happens that way.’”

That’s just disingenuous. Here’s the song; moment in question is about 1:18.

I just don’t get why they are trying to distance themselves from their obvious influences. It seems ungrateful and snotty to pretend that they just independently thought of something that sounded exactly like Queen, down to the Red Special filter on Bellamy’s guitar, and THE WORDS THEMSELVES; well-known as the tagline for the film Highlander, for which Queen provided much of the soundtrack.  The line (while, I grant you, isn’t a unique phrase) also appears in the Queen song “A Kind of Magic,” which is on aforementioned soundtrack.

So, Muse: Bullshit! WHY would you pretend that’s just a natural consequence of your obvious musical brilliance?  You can still be musically brilliant and innovative (which they are!) and be a little humble and admit where you’re paying obvious tribute.  Not only that, I love the way they’ve used their glam and classic rock influences, as toldorknown said.  That’s part of why I’m such a fan!

Anyway, that’s why I said what I said.