Today's Pick

If the snow and cold weather has you down, take a trip to the beach with Muse in today's video for their soon-to-be-released single, "Supremacy," the lead single from English alternative rock band's most recent dystrophy-worthy sixth studio album, "The 2nd Law," which has already sold 1.5 million copies worldwide.
Muse open their latest album with "Supremacy," reportedly written for the latest James Bond film "Skyfall" but was rejected in favor of Adele's "Skyfall" theme, in which they foresee the collapse of industrial civilization. The track is a bit of stately, epic stadium rock which starts off slow and gradually builds to squealing guitars, symphony strings, lead singer Matt Bellamy's almost-operatic vocals and headbanging mayhem with iron-fisted guitar-drums interplay that could keep the trains running on time.

Spiraling swamp blues of the track builds to a climax of orchestral hysteria as Bellamy orates a terrifying scene of mankind losing its supremacy over the Earth as the seas have risen up and energy shortages cause global desperation. A pivot away from Muse's previous material, the focus on subtle sonic textures in "Supremacy" marks a new, more nuanced direction for the Brit pomp rockers.
The video is appropriately gonzo. Featuring a crew of face-painted black-metal lovers hanging out, surfing, skating, biking while hoisting flaming swords and even hosting a sunset wedding and having a whale of a time in Los Angeles, as the band jam out on a boat and bashes out the monstrous prog rock epic against a backdrop of Goth surfers. It just doesn't match the Bond theme-like track it's paired with. The only thing the song and the video have in common is they're just awesome.

Finally, the "Twilight" universe's favorite band is back, as if Stephenie Meyer and the creative minds behind the big-screen vampire franchise would have it any other way. The English alternative rock band Muse is making it three-for-three when it comes to the vampire movie soundtracks, contributing the lead single "Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever)" off the upcoming third film of "The Twilight Saga, Eclipse." And now they've premiered the brand new video on MTV for the song.
The song was first announced on Stephenie Meyer's official website. BBC Radio 1 aired the full song on Monday, May 17 during Zane Lowe's show, accompanied by an interview with band's lead vocals Matt Bellamy, who explained that the song was written after he split with his long-term girlfriend at the end of 2009, and was based on his feelings at the beginning of their relationship. While Muse featured on the Twilight and New Moon soundtracks previously (with "Supermassive Black Hole" in Twilight and a special remix of "I Belong to You" in New Moon), this marks the second time the band has produced the lead single for a movie.
Their sound is a blend of alternative rock, classical music, electronica, metal, spanish guitars, and progressive rock. Usually they use the bass line as the driving force, often with the guitar providing only an extra layer to the song rather than carrying the melody, the bass has distortion and other effects applied to it to achieve a greater weight, allowing the guitar to digress from the main tune and play higher notes. Another peculiarity is Muse's piano style in many of their songs; their music has been inspired by the works of Romantic pianist-composers such as Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and Liszt, and has thus resulted in a fusion of Romantic style with modern rock.
If there's one piece that's usually been lacking in the Muse puzzle, it's been a truly memorable video. They've obviously got plenty of bucks to spend on such promos, and the clips usually look good. In Anthony Mandler directed new video, the band plays in front of oversize screens, colored lights glow and mix around them and snippets of Edward, Bella and Jacob flash across the screen. The video doesn't show us a ton of fresh footage, but we do get a sense of story elements set to the tune of a brooding, epic rock song. The 'Eclipse' soundtrack album is due on June 8 and the movie hits theaters on June 30.