Muse

Muse formed in Teignmouth, Devon, England, in 1994. Matt Bellamy (vocals, guitar, piano), Chris Wolstenholme (bass, backing vocals), and Dominic Howard (drums) were school friends who started playing together as teenagers. They were originally called Gothic Plague, then Rocket Baby Dolls, then finally Muse.

They won a local battle of the bands in 1994, which got them studio time and led to their first demos.

They signed to Maverick Records in 1999 and released Showbiz — a debut that wore its Radiohead influence openly but had enough of its own identity (Sunburn, Muscle Museum) to announce something new was coming. Then Origin of Symmetry (2001) arrived and everything changed. Plug In Baby's riff is one of the most recognizable in rock.

New Born starts with a piano intro and then drops into a riff that could level buildings. Bliss is pure euphoria. They were suddenly the biggest rock band in the UK.

The ambition kept scaling up. Absolution (2003) had Apocalypse Please and Time Is Running Out. Black Holes and Revelations (2006) had Supermassive Black Hole and Knights of Cydonia.

The Resistance (2009) had a three-part symphony. They've headlined Wembley, Glastonbury, and every major festival multiple times. They've won multiple Brit Awards and Grammys.

And they're still a three-piece — everything you hear live is three people and a lot of effects pedals.

Origin of Symmetry (July 2001) is the album that made them superstars. Plug In Baby opens with that guitar riff — a descending chromatic line through an effects chain that sounds like nothing else. New Born is the six-minute epic that starts as a piano ballad and becomes a metal song.

Bliss is the pop song with a theremin. Space Dementia is Rachmaninoff on steroids. Citizen Erased is the prog-rock masterpiece — seven minutes, four sections, and it keeps getting better.

The album established Muse as the most ambitious rock band of their generation.

Black Holes and Revelations (July 2006) was the crossover. Supermassive Black Hole was funk-rock with a falsetto hook that appeared in Twilight and introduced them to America. Starlight was the power ballad.

Knights of Cydonia was the six-minute closer — a spaghetti-western drum intro, a galloping bassline, a guitar solo, vocal harmonies, and a final chorus that sounds like every heroic thing that has ever happened. It's their magnum opus in single form. Map of the Problematique is the synth-rock masterpiece.

The Resistance (September 2009) went full symphonic. Uprising was the stadium anthem — a synth bassline, a marching beat, Matt singing about rising up. United States of Eurasia is Queen meets Chopin.

Undisclosed Desires is electronic pop. And then the Exogenesis Symphony — a three-part orchestral suite that closes the album. They headlined Wembley Stadium twice to support it.

The 2nd Law (2012) experimented with dubstep and electronic music. Madness became their biggest US hit. Drones (2015) was a concept album about drone warfare.

Simulation Theory (2018) was 80s synth-rock. Will of the People (2022) hopped between genres every track — metal, pop, electronic, punk, and more. Every album is different.

Every album is unmistakably Muse.

Muse are the last great rock band that genuinely sounds like the future. In an era where most rock music looks backward, Muse look forward — synthesizers, orchestras, concept albums, theatrical shows with drones and confetti cannons and rotating stages. They proved that rock music could be maximalist, ambitious, and absurdly theatrical without being ironic about it.

Matt Bellamy is one of the most technically gifted musicians in rock. He plays guitar like a classical pianist, sings in a falsetto that can shatter glass, and composes three-part symphonies for his albums. The fact that all of this comes from a three-piece band is genuinely remarkable.

There's no backing track. Three people make that sound.

Their influence is everywhere in modern alternative rock. Every band that uses synths with distorted guitars, every band that writes seven-minute epics with tempo changes, every band that tries to sound bigger than their lineup allows — they're all chasing what Muse figured out on Origin of Symmetry. Knights of Cydonia alone has spawned a generation of imitators.

None of them quite get there.