Muse’s ‘Dead Inside’

British rock band Muse has a new CD, Drones, releasing on 5th June. Its album art is rather interesting:

They’ve released three singles from the album so far, the second of which is ‘Dead Inside’ (released on 23 March). I heard it when I was pottering around the kitchen listening to BBC Radio 1.

It starts with this really catchy ‘DEAD INSIDE!’ scream, layered with another voice an octave higher, that immediately made the song interesting to the restless teenage mind I possess. To their immense credit, they didn’t use this chant liberally throughout the song–they only used it at the end of the chorus, where it’s very much warranted. Shows–they’re an alternative rock band after all, not some band trying to churn out hits to please the masses.

The lyrics are interesting (ignoring the faintly blasphemous opening lines), and it’s a different way to show a relationship dying because the singer’s girlfriend is empty and ‘dead inside’. There are the typical mystical rock lyrics, of course.

In fact, the song reminds me of the Friends episode (remember that sitcom, guys?!), ‘The One With All The Jealousy (read script here). Monica gets with a Spanish intellectual/poet who works in a diner, and she’s flattered one night when they’re ‘fooling around’ and he stops to write a poem. Phoebe interprets that the poem is actually demeaning: ‘My vessel so lovely with nothing inside,/Now that I’ve touched you, you seem emptier still…!’

On the outside you’re ablaze and alive
But you’re dead inside

The music is amazing (of course it is, we’re talking about Muse here). Distinct drums and some very expressive guitar in between the verses, and it doesn’t feel like one of those manufactured songs designed to please brainless listeners (myself included in said brainless people).

The music video is vaguely entertaining, and it features two dancers to act out the story the lyrics tell. (This is again to their credit–the singers aren’t made to act out the story, that’s just lame). Considering the set and props, the dancers’ movements aren’t very captivating, unlike some other music videos where the dance is integral to the video. At the end, the girl’s eyes become that full black that’s supposed to scare us.

This isn’t like the other catchy Muse songs that spiked to popularity, ‘Madness’ and ‘Neutron Star Collision’ to name a few. But it’s beautiful, it’s climbing the charts in its own genre, and I think this album will be a hit, judging from the other singles released so far. Muse themselves says they’re going back to rock with this album.