19: Muse - Plug-In Baby

I already wrote briefly about Muse's Wembley Stadium show when I placed 'Knights of Cydonia' at number 60 in my countdown. Watching the gig footage of 'Plug In Baby' (below) brought back more happy memories of the greatest gig I ever attended.

I was a Muse fan very early - I bought their debut album, 'Showbiz' shortly after it was released in 1999, and played the album to death. So for me personally, there was a lot riding on the "difficult" second album. 'Plug In Baby' was to be the first single, and both it and 2001's 'Origin of Symmetry' exceeded all my expectations. They distinguished Muse as being more than just Radiohead imitators.



Total Guitar magazine ranked the riff as the 13th best of all time, making it their highest ranking riff of this decade. The apocalyptic intro simply screams out of Matt Bellamy's "plug in baby", and guitar fans the world over could unite to the lyrics "my plug-in baby crucifies my enemies". Bellamy's falsetto vocals were at their anguished best, although their record label at the time, the Madonna-owned Maverick disagreed. The dispute over whether or not to tone down Bellamy's parts resulted in the band walking away from the label and releasing the album through Mushroom Records instead. I hope someone lost their job over that decision. Trying to mess with this masterpiece is inexcusable.