Muse are an English rock band from Teignmouth, Devon, formed in 1994. The band consists of Matt Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme, and Dominic Howard.
members: Matt Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme, Dominic Howard
formed in: Teignmouth
labels: Warner Bros. Records
genres: rock music, progressive rock, symphonic rock, space rock, hard rock, alternative rock, alternative metal, psychedelic rock
influenced by: Queen, Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine
awards: MTV Europe Music Award for Best World Stage Performance
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The members of Muse played in separate school bands during their time at Teignmouth Community College in the early 1990s. Guitarist Matt Bellamy successfully auditioned for drummer Dominic Howard's band, Carnage Mayhem, becoming its singer and songwriter. They renamed the band Gothic Plague. They asked Chris Wolstenholme – at that time the drummer for Fixed Penalty – to join as bassist; he agreed and took up bass lessons. The band was renamed Rocket Baby Dolls and adopted a goth-glam image. Around this time, they received a £150 grant from the Prince's Trust for equipment.
After a few years building a fanbase, Muse played their first gigs in London and Manchester supporting Skunk Anansie on tour. They had a significant meeting with Dennis Smith, the owner of Sawmills Studio, situated in a converted water mill in Cornwall. He had seen the three boys grow up as he knew their parents, and had a production company with their future manager Safta Jaffery, with whom he had recently started the record label Taste Media. The meeting led to their first serious recordings and the release of the Muse EP on 11 May 1998 on Sawmills' in-house Dangerous label, produced by Paul Reeve. Their second EP, the Muscle Museum EP, also produced by Reeve, was released on 11 January 1999. It reached number 3 in the indie singles...
Described as a band that fuse alternative rock, progressive rock, space rock, hard rock, art rock, electronic rock, progressive metal, indie rock and pop, Muse also mix sounds from genres such as electronica and R&B, with forms such as classical music and rock opera. In 2002, Bellamy described Muse as a "trashy three-piece". He said supporting the Red Hot Chili Peppers on their 1999 Californication tour inspired Muse to become less reserved and "up their game" in their performances. Bellamy said Lady Gaga was an influence on Muse's showmanship and stage costumes, "crossing that line between what is fantasy and what is reality".
Underlined songs have their story further down.
"Supermassive Black Hole" is a song by English rock band Muse. Written by Muse lead singer and principal songwriter Matt Bellamy, it was released as the lead single from the band's fourth studio album, Black Holes and Revelations (2006), on 19 June 2006, backed with "Crying Shame".
"Supermassive Black Hole" has been described as alternative rock and dance-rock, with elements of funk. Bellamy said that the song was "the most different to anything we've ever done." Influences included bands such as the Beatles as well as several Belgian bands; specifically, Millionaire, dEUS, Evil Superstars and Soulwax. Bellamy said that "these groups were the first to mix R&B rhythms with alternative guitar. We've added a bit of Prince and Kanye West. The drumbeat isn't rocky, with Rage Against the Machine riffs underneath. We've mixed a lot of things in this track, with a bit of electronica; it’s different, slow, quite funky." In an interview with NME, Bellamy said "I was going out dancing in clubs around New York. That helped...
The single's accompanying music video shows the band playing in a small furniture shop, clad in masks. This is intercut with images of dancers in Zentai suits which are then unzipped at the end to reveal beings made of space. The video was directed by Floria Sigismondi, who has directed videos for alternative bands such as Marilyn Manson, the White Stripes, Interpol, Incubus and the Cure. Sigismondi described the video as replicating a recurring dream she has experienced, in which dancers wearing masks of their own faces or mirrors and full body suits fill a dark mirrored room. There are also flashes of a black circle, a depiction of a supermassive black hole.
"Supermassive Black Hole" was released 19 June 2006 on vinyl, CD, and DVD, with a digital download available a week before the release. It peaked at number four on the UK Singles Chart, making it their most popular single released in the UK to date. In the US, it was the third single to be released, on 23 April 2007. The single reached number six on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart, making it the eighth highest-charting Muse single in the US. The song was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in 2015.
NME gave the song a score of 8.5 out of 10, describing it as "dirty funk guitars rub[bing] saucily against a Prince-ish falsetto over a pink leather couchette". A reviewer on Blogcritics commented that the song has "a bit of a 'disco' feel that some fans may not be expecting". Andrew Perry of The Observer wrote that the song "thunderingly mixes Automatic-era Jesus and Mary Chain with a Prince-like funk, and boasts lyrics like, 'Oo, baby, I'm a fool for you' – not the doings of a gothy navel-gazer."