Trivia / Muse

• Ascended Meme: It's common for fans to affectionately poke fun at Matt's Elmuh Fudd Syndwome, and Matt later purposefully used it in "Propaganda".
• Banned in China: Muse were asked not to play the songs "Uprising", and "Revolt", on the Beijing and Shanghai portions of their Drones Tour, presumably for political reasons.
• Based on a Dream: "Micro Cuts" was inspired by a dehydration-fueled nightmare Matt had where he was pursued by flying razor-sharp blades in the desert.
• Better Export for You: The Japanese CD releases of their first four albums each came with an exclusive bonus track: "Spiral Static" for Showbiz, "Futurism" for Origin of Symmetry, "Fury" for Absolution, and "Glorious" for Black Holes and Revelations. Due to the rise of streaming services (and, in the case of the first two albums, the releases of Origin of Muse and the Origin of Symmetry anniversary remix), these tracks are no longer as hard to find.
• Black Sheep Hit:
  • "Madness", an electropop ballad, which received a lot of critical acclaim but broke the fanbase, and has been described to sound like every band except Muse. Which is kind of funny if you think about it, since not sounding like themselves is exactly the sort of thing they would do.
  • "Supermassive Black Hole" and "Starlight" are some of the most played Muse tracks on radio, but are some of the most atypical - the former being an electro-funk track, and the latter being a melodic alt-rock track. Whilst a lot of fans felt they'd sold out, they couldn't deny that the tracks were catchy.
• Chart Displacement: "Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever)" is one of the three songs to chart in the Billboard Hot 100 (the others being "Uprising" and "Madness", both above it), thanks to its inclusion in the third installment of the The Twilight Saga. However the song is rarely acknowledged by the public and the band themselves have only played it four times in the early 2010s.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Not an extreme example, but Matt doesn't think that highly of the b-side "Eternally Missed", whilst many fans regard it as one of the best songs they ever did. This is summed up well when they brought the song back as part of a rarities night in France in 2018, in which Matt dismisses the song in his introduction but fans loudly sing along to every word.
  • The band feel this way about their early demo tapes This Is A Muse Demo and the Newton Abbot Demo as well as their 1994 Battle Of The Bands performance (their earliest known stuff). Every time a copy of This Is A Muse Demo has come on the market (so far twice) someone has outbid the fans by a ridiculous amount, leading to suspicions the band doesn't want anyone hearing it. Chris said it was like people wanting to look at baby pictures.
  • Matt Bellamy doesn't have very kind words about "Execution Commentary," often branding it the worst song he ever wrote.
• Creator Breakdown: Matt has been through more than his fair share of these, with one of the most harrowing ones occurring during the recording of Origin Of Symmetry. Depression, a lack of self-care due to extensive touring and heavy hallucinogenic use culminated in a complete nervous breakdown - to the point that intense hallucinations would strike without warning or stimulation. Although he's still generally fond of the album, he's noted it's somewhat still entwined with his less-than-pleasant experiences during its making.
  • As noted on the main page, Chris has also been through some rough patches, with alcoholism peaking around the time of Black Holes And Revelations and getting to the point that he had to be given an ultimatum to either sober up or quit the band. Most thankfully, both men have long since recovered.
• Executive Meddling: Averted with the U.S. release of Origin of Symmetry. Their label wanted them to remove the falsetto lyrics, but their refusal ended with them parting ways and depriving the band's U.S. fans of Origin until 2005.
• Fan Community Nickname: Musers.
• Flip-Flop of God: Some songs receive this treatment in regards to their meaning. Matt often attributes a change in meaning to either moving on from an opinion he no longer holds, or straight-up forgetting what he originally meant.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Although the band included most of the previously leaked Newton Abbot Demo Tape on the first disc of Origin Of Muse (plus a number of unreleased demos), they omitted "Falling With The Crowd" and "Forameus". Whether they did this to give fans something to hunt down or simply because they didn't like the songs has never been said.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The Origin of Muse box set contains (most of) the aforementioned Newton Abbot Demos, remasters of Showbiz and Origin of Symmetry, and a biography of the band's early days, among other rarities. This also crosses over with Milestone Celebration: The box set's release fell on the same year as the 20th anniversary of Showbiz, and contains the live performance of Origin's 10th anniversary set at Reading+Leeds Festival.
• Meme Acknowledgement: "It's WOTPingtime!" was a fairly common meme bouncing around the fanbase at the time of Will of the People 's release. A Twitter user named @SING4ABS0LUTI0N got Matt himself to say the phrase and posted the video of it online.
• Referenced by...:
  • In the Tempest (2011) novel Tempest Rising, Muse is one of the artists Tempest dances to at her seventeenth birthday party.
  • Canadian figure skater Roman Sadovsky performed to "Exogenesis: Symphony Part 3 (Redemption)" for his short program during the 2016-17 season. He later revamped it with slightly different choreography for 2020-2021.
    • He is one of manyother skaters^note in order: Jeremy Abbott (2011-12), Ashley Wagner (2016-17), Vincent Zhou (2018-19) who have used the song in their programs, dating all the way from Sinead and John Kerr in the 2010-11 season.^note They originally performed it as an exhibition piece, as linked here.
    • Maxim Kovtun used ''Part 2'' (Cross-pollination) in the 2014-15 season.
• Short Run in Peru: Showbiz had a staggered release in different countries, the earliest being in France on September 7, 1999. The album wasn't officially out in their native United Kingdom until October 4.
• Trolling Creator: On April Fool's day, Muse released an EP labeled as "Exogenesis Symphony, part 4: Salvation", with a low-quality sample of someone singing "Creep", along with "Guiding Light (Rich Costey Edit)" to make fun of fans who blamed said producer for making The Resistance sound too poppy.
• What Could Have Been:
  • It took four years for Origin of Symmetry to be released on an American record label. Muse did not get widespread recognition in the US until Absolution. At that time, Origin was only available via import, which caught a lot of new, back catalog-digging American fans by surprise by way of availability and music. The story is that Maverick Records, the band's original label in the US (which released Showbiz), wanted Bellamy's falsetto vocals off the album. Muse refused and split with Maverick. Of course, nowadays their songs get regular radio play in America.
  • "Unsustainable" was considered for the Skyfall theme, but Adele ultimately won.
  • Simulation Theory was originally intended to be a stripped-down, almost-purely-acoustic album, before being taken into the realm of synth-rock.
• Word of God: The 20-foot-tall robot that sings "Unsustainable" during the 2nd Law tour is called Charles. The average concertgoer wouldn't know his name or origin unless they obsessively followed Matt's Twitter at the time.