James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 15: Origins of Symmetry

And so we get around to ‘O’. Which is OK. Well part of OK.

Did I make that joke for ‘K’?

Yes.

Yes I did.

Do I apologise for making it a second time.

No.

No I don’t.

O is for Origins of Symmetry

I went to the Glastonbury festival in the year 2000. I wrote about it in this post.

Muse were on the bill at Glastonbury 2000. I did not see them. This is not all that surprising of course, because I couldn’t possibly have seen all of the acts at Glastonbury 2000. But I made a specific decision not to see Muse. Because I didn’t think they were any good.

I slightly revised that opinion in 2001 when they released their second album, Origins of Symmetry.

I still thought they were a poor man’s Radiohead, but given Radiohead’s deviation in the early 2000s from the sort of material they had been putting out in the 90s, I was willing to take ‘poor man’s Radiohead’ over actual Radiohead in 2001. I’ve revised that opinion too and I’m once again a fan of all things Radiohead, now that I live by the rule of thumb that if you don’t like a particular Radiohead album, all you need to do is listen to it about a hundred times and then you will come to realise it really is a brilliant record.

I’ve come to quite like Muse on their own terms too. Listening to a Muse album a hundred times will not make it any better, but a Muse album is usually more accessible to begin with.

I’ve seen Muse live since ignoring them in Glastonbury and credit where credit is due, they are a pretty decent live act.

I could still happily ignore most of their back catalogue in favour of a greatest hits compilation though.

A reasonable percentage of that compilation would probably be made up of tracks from Absolution and Black Holes and Revelations but there are a few from Origins of Symmetry that would likely make the cut and one that even a Muse-sceptic like me would have to acknowledge is a actually a pretty decent track by anyone’s standards. Which is Plug In Baby.