Muse

Muse are typically an alternative rock band who have released six studio albums and formed in 1994. Black Holes and Revelations earned the band a Mercury Prize nomination and a third place finish in the NME Albums of the Year list for 2006 as well as winning a collection of other music awards throughout their history.Muse released their second album Origin of Symmetry in 2001. The band wanted to enhance their sound into a more progressive, confident and aggressive sound: (Chris Wolstenholme, who plays Bass, vocals and keyboard for the band regarding to the sound of their previous album)"Looking back, (Chris regarding to the sound of their previous album) there isn't much difference sonically between the mellow stuff and the heavier tracks. The heavy stuff really could have been a lot heavier and that's what we want to do with this album." Their third album Absolution, released in 2003, followed the bands earlier styles, increasing the band's heaviness and intensity alongside its ambitious thematics.

The album also features songs with prominent string arrangements and starts to draw influences from artists such as Queen. Their fourth album, Black holes and revelations 2006 is a more electronical and space rock oriented album, though some tracks remain to have the heaviness of the band's previous work, while others show a more melodic style, differing from the musical style of their first album, Showbiz in 1999. This shows what was the band has developed already over time, progressing from their earliest genres to a variety of electronical space rock and heavy rock.

Muse's fifth album, The Resistance, in 2009 is mostly focused on the symphonic rock and progressive rock genres, shown in the tracks Resistance and the Exogenesis: Symphony. Although this album is seen as softer than their earlier ones, they still show heavy rock genre. Muse's sixth, and latest album, The 2nd Law in 2012, has a much broader range of genres, from funk and film scores to electronical and dubstep. The 2nd Law is influenced by famous rock acts like Queen and Led Zeppelin as well as dub-step producer Skrillex and Nero on The 2nd Law: Unsustainable and Follow Me, with, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder on Panic Station which features musicians who performed on Stevie Wonder's Superstition and Hans Zimmer. Additionally, the album marks the first performance of bassist Chris Wolstenholme on lead vocals, who wrote two songs for the album about his battle with alcoholism – "Save Me" and Liquid State

Looking at their music video for Madness, Part of the narrative of the video shows rioters, this could be intersexual reference as the London riots had recently occurred when this video was released. The lighting and setting here is quite dark and can perhaps be linked to the London Riots which were taking place around the time, as a reference to the title of the song. The song appears to be about the mysteriousness of a relationship, and the idea of fighting is controlling the relationship

"When I look back at all the crazy fights we had Like some kind of madness Was taking control"

However the video and the lyrics later show that there is light in their relationship, and that they understand the problems they have, and ends as they both realize they are in love and the madness makes sense

"But I have finally seen the light I have finally realized I need to love"

This is represented from this later image in the song, in a lighter colour, of which the couple stand out and are in the front of the image, whilst the police and rioters are in the back, symbolizing they have overpowered the madness in their relationship.

This song can be seen as a love song, and has a deep meaning in the video and lyrics, but not all of Muse's songs relate to this genre, showing how their videos have changed over time, as their older work is more performance based and has less meaning in the video. For example their song Starlight is a full performance video, and therefore there is less meaning to infer from it

A music video with a deeper meaning is generally a slower song like a love song, so Muse have perhaps changed their style of music videos to fit the lyrics as it will allow them to stand out more in the video, as it is recognisable as a narrative more than a performance, because there is more of a story to the video. this is because they have become a more mainstream band so want to appeal to their target audience, and also a greater target audience and have different styles of music videos.