I should preface this by saying that this is a personal reflection, and not intended as a universal statement on music appreciation. My distaste of certain ideas and approaches is largely fueled by my evolving experience of music, and the way I project that onto the world.

Lately, I've grown disillusioned by the way music is sometimes consumed—appreciated, or worse, dismissed for reasons that stray too far from what music fundamentally is. Over-intellectualisation can overshadow the raw, emotional experience of sound. I know that music can invite discussion of culture, genre, theory, and our personal biases, but when abstractions like these dictate value, I can't help but feel like something vital has been lost.

What does this have to do with Muse? Well, I think they're a band that reflects this idea in my own life. Their music—like so much I loved growing up—carries a sense of seriousness. Yet this seriousness contradicts how we naturally perceive music when we're young, before judgement clouds it. The energy of the patently self-aggrandising spirit that is in Muse's music has always been impossible for me to shake. Despite how it might feel now, that energy is not asking us to take itself seriously. It’s often our past selves that ask us to take it seriously, tangled in social dynamics we can’t help but consider as part of the music. But I feel I must challenge that consideration.

Throughout my life, I have had a strange relationship with things that I enjoy. I carry a lot of shame, and my growth has been to let go of it. Anything that tests my ability to cringe has always held a special place for me, serving as the strongest argument against shame. It quietens the voice telling me to resist, because of bullshit reasons. In the case of Muse, this would be for the way it feels like it has been so deliberately crafted to serve the purpose of feeling elated. But, with all of us having limited time on this planet, ask yourself, is there much of anything which hasn't been made in service of a similar purpose?

Even when music is "bad", which I do think is an interesting conversation, it's the process and attitude it holds in its creation that resonates most with me. Its purpose and drive speaks to my creative sensibilities, so I can't help but think that the conversation about whether Muse can be taken seriously is not just irrelevant, but inconsequential to the enjoyment of music at large; how it's approached, understood, and felt.

I also can't help but think of the people in my life who have undoubtedly cultivated this attitude in me. I would say I was "saved" if only I knew what the alternative would've been without their influence. It has simply made me who I am today to such an extent that I wouldn't be myself otherwise. Some things are so monumental like that, and make what-ifs just as irrelevant and inconsequential as feeling shame about something you like.

In the end, there will always be a gulf between your perception and the sound. Your experience of the music is tangled in surrounding aspects, derived from internal and external influences, and it is necessary for some of those influences to colour your impressions to have any impression at all. But I think the vital things, that must not be lost, are the feelings that have been most directly derived from the impact of the sound.

We're blessed to engage with something so irreducible and irreplaceable. For as long as it lasts—so long as it can be invoked, remembered, and felt—we owe it to ourselves to listen to what it says, in the wordless way that only music can speak.