Madness
Muse
"Madness" is Muse at their most restrained, which for Muse still means a bass tone built from a Z.Vex Wooly Mammoth-style dubstep wobble running underneath a song that is otherwise almost entirely a soul ballad. The debt to Queen's "I Want to Break Free" is explicit and unembarrassed: the same synth-pad patience, the same slow reveal. Bellamy sings low and close for most of it, restraining the theatrics, letting the repeated "mad, mad, mad" sit in the pocket as the only ornament — until the final minute, when the falsetto arrives and the guitar solo finally cuts loose with a clean, singing tone that sounds like relief. The lyric is a marital argument in the aftermath: he's been trying to work out what's wrong, admits it's him, says "I need to love." Written during Bellamy's relationship with Kate Hudson, it's unusually personal for a band whose default subject is government surveillance. The wobbling bass keeps the whole thing from becoming a wedding song. Best late at night after a fight has burned itself out and the room is quiet, when you're rehearsing an apology and can't yet make it sound like one.
slow
2000s
intimate, wobbling, tense-then-relieved
United Kingdom
Alternative Rock, Soul. dubstep-tinged soul ballad. remorseful, restrained. stays low and contained through admission and repetition, finally releasing into falsetto and a singing guitar solo of relief. energy 4. slow. danceability 3. valence 4. vocals: low, close, restrained, releasing into falsetto. production: wobbling dubstep-style bass, patient synth pads, clean guitar solo. texture: intimate, wobbling, tense-then-relieved. acousticness 3. era: 2000s. United Kingdom. late at night after a fight has burned out, rehearsing an apology