Skip to content
Published in alternative rock ·

Muse

Uprising

The lead single of Muse's 2009 album The Resistance: a glam-rock stomp that critics compared to the Doctor Who theme, a call to rise up against control, and the band's best-selling single.

By korczis 3 min read
Share on LinkedIn Share on X Share on Facebook

Review

Genre and Mood

Muse built “Uprising” as alternative rock in glam-rock boots: defiant, rebellious and energetic, a protest song with a dance-floor stomp. It is the most direct song on an album that ends in a three-part symphony, and the one that carried it.

Song Summary

“Uprising” opens The Resistance, Muse’s fifth album, and came out first, as its lead single, on 4 August 2009. Matt Bellamy wrote it and the band produced it at Studio Bellini on Lake Como, with Spike Stent mixing. The lyric is a call to resist control by the powerful and the media; Bellamy said it “sums up how a lot of people feel and it’s that we need change.” Musically it was inspired by Goldfrapp’s electronic pop and by the glam rock of the 1970s and 1980s; Uncut heard in it a schaffel beat, the riff from Blondie’s Call Me and leftist sloganeering. The album version runs just over five minutes; the official video, embedded here, is shorter.

Musical Breakdown

The sources describe the song by its layers rather than its sections, so this breakdown follows them.

The Beat

The schaffel beat is a shuffling, swung stomp, the rhythm of glam rock. Wikipedia gives the song in D minor at 132 beats per minute.

The Bass

The band wanted the rhythm section to sound real. Chris Wolstenholme said they were after a bass sound that “almost sounded like a synth, but wasn’t”.

The Synths

Bellamy plays guitars and synthesizers as well as singing. Several critics compared the song to the theme of Doctor Who, a television signature known for its electronic sound.

The Refrain

The chorus turns the lyric into a chant of refusal, with handclaps and backing vocals from Tom Kirk, Adrian Bushby and Paul Reeve.

Concepts in Focus

A riff is a short figure repeated until it becomes the song’s identity. Uncut heard Blondie’s Call Me in this one, and the riff is what the stomp hangs on.

The synthesizer matters twice here: in Bellamy’s own synth parts, and as the sound the bass imitates without being one. Compare The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army, where a guitar passes for a bass.

The music video, by Humble TV, sets an uprising of teddy bears loose in a miniature city. It won Best Special Effects at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards.

Artistic Context

Muse is Matt Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme and Dominic Howard. The Resistance brought them their first Grammy for Best Rock Album. Bellamy later said the conspiracy-theory subculture the song draws on had been “hijacked by the right”, and the band refused American politicians who asked to use it at rallies.

Impact and Reception

“Uprising” reached 9 in the UK and 37 on the Billboard Hot 100, Muse’s first entry there, and topped the US Alternative Songs chart for 17 weeks. It is the band’s best-selling single, double platinum in the US. PopMatters, which gave the album 4 of 10, still called it “easily the best track on the album”: a Glitter stomp hacking away at the Doctor Who theme. Turn it up and stamp along.

Learn from this track

Introductory

What you will learn

  • Explain how a rock band can borrow the stomp of 1970s glam rock and the sound of electronic pop at once.
  • Describe how a bass guitar can be made to sound almost like a synthesizer, and why a band would want that.
  • Explain how a music video can turn a protest song's theme into an image, and what an award for its effects says about it.

Listening guide

  1. the beat What Uncut called a schaffel beat, the shuffling glam stomp that Muse took, with Goldfrapp, as a model.
  2. the bass Chris Wolstenholme's bass, which the band wanted to sound almost like a synth without being one.
  3. the synths Bellamy's synthesizers, in a song that several critics compared to the theme music of Doctor Who.
  4. the refrain Matt Bellamy's lines of refusal, sung over handclaps and backing vocals credited to Tom Kirk, Adrian Bushby and Paul Reeve.
  5. the video A giant teddy bear destroying a city, which Rolling Stone read as a nod to Ghostbusters.

Concepts in this track

music video

144 tracks

A short film made to accompany a song. Since MTV it has shaped how songs are remembered, and on YouTube it is often the main way a song is heard.

riff

25 tracks

A short, repeated melodic or rhythmic figure, usually played by an instrument, that anchors a song. Rock riffs are often guitar figures; in electronic music the same role falls to a synth or bass line.

synthesizer

66 tracks

An electronic instrument that generates sound from oscillators and shapes it with filters and envelopes. Synthesizers define the sound of electronic pop, house and techno.

Listen next, and why

Questions for discussion

  1. Bellamy said the song sums up a feeling that we need change. Why do protest songs so often stay vague about who they are against?
  2. Muse refused American politicians who wanted to use Uprising at rallies. Who owns the meaning of a protest song once it is a hit?
  3. Why might a band choose a teddy bear, not a soldier, as the image of an uprising?

References

  1. Wikipedia. Uprising (Muse song). Encyclopedia
  2. PopMatters. Muse: The Resistance (2009). Review
  3. YouTube (Muse). Muse - Uprising [Official Video] (2009). Video
  4. MusicBrainz. The Resistance (release). Database

More like this

Weighted overlap of genres, feelings and moods.

Neighbourhood

This track, the tracks most like it and theirs. Drag, zoom, hover; a dot opens the track.

Show as table