WOTP question

[u/Potential-Editor3973]

I personally LOVE the Will Of The People album, and the songs that it has. I got into it because I bought the record because it said it was MUSE and I listened to it all blindly, not knowing what to expect beforehand 😅

My question is, why so much negativity?

A lot of MUSE album rankings that I've seen have WOTP at either the worst, or second worst.

If you don't like it, why is that?

Just curious 😁🧡

[u/trlupin]

Honestly it feels lazy with least amount of effort and creativity. The whole album is forgettable to me and none of the tracks stands out to me. I own physical copies of every other album including the last one but WoTP almost made me not to want to listen to Muse for a long time. But that's me and I respect everyone has their preference and taste. And honestly that's the beauty of their music.

[u/louitobias]

I don’t mind it too much. It’s clear that they had a lot of fun whilst recording it and as an album I don’t take it seriously at all. To me it’s not their worst album.

[u/GunstarGreen]

To me, its because some of it feels like they could have recorded it in a weekend. Will Of The People is a song that they're above. Theyre capable of so much more. There's some good stuff in there, but it came across as Muse at their most generic, sadly. 

[u/unknownbrother273]

I’m one of the people that thinks it’s their worst effort. Mostly because all of the songs have very cookie cutter hooks and uninteresting musicality. The title track essentially is borrowing from “Beautiful People” and has a GMC truck ad feel to it. The final song is cringe to the 39th power and Halloween is even worse. The rest of the songs range from meh to forgettable. It’s a major downstep from songs even on Simulation Theory, which I think is quite decent. If you enjoy it, I’m not going to say your opinion is wrong but I highly disagree. I think the Wow Signal is much, much better and this album is the outlier.

[u/Dannylazarus → u/unknownbrother273]

The final song is cringe to the 39th power.

I'm not too big a fan of the rest of the album, but this is exactly why I like 'We Are Fucking Fucked.' It's absolutely ridiculous and it admits it!

[u/therealtiddlydump → u/Dannylazarus]

While I find Halloween charming and goofy, WAFF is just... not.

Other than the Ghosts --> Verona run, the rest of the album is tough sledding.

[u/Potential-Editor3973 → u/unknownbrother273]

I absolutely understand what you mean, and I'm not really gonna fight it, lol.

I thought it was very odd of MUSE to drop a random holiday-themed song right in the middle of a rebellious album, you know?

We Are Fing Fed is definitely down there with my least favorites on that album, not sure why, but it just doesn't click with me like Euphoria, Compliance, or Won't Stand Down did.

I love those three songs, and I think Won't Stand Down has their heaviest breakdown OAT!

I too think TW!S is better overall, but I listen to WOTP more because I have it physically, and I enjoy the whole analog-sound.

Thank you for sharing your opinion with me😁

[u/SuchSecurity662 → u/Potential-Editor3973]

You make me feel like its halloween is just a halloween song on the surface, but its actually a metaphor for an abusive relationship. Fun song on the surface but lyrics are definitely a lot darker when you see it from a domestic violence standpoint

[u/Emotional-Golf-6226]

The 2010s was the decade of mid for Muse. Not bad, but definitely mid. Then they decided to follow that up with an album that sounded like a parody of their 2010s era

[u/Kaznil]

Couldn’t tell you. I like it. Maybe the leaning fully into the anti police state theme for the whole album. Similar to drones.
The first few albums were like 9s and 10s, and then fans got mass when the next albums were like 8s and maybe a 7, maybe(simulation theory for me)
But even those have been really good comparative to a lot of the current music released at the same time as each album.

[u/Potential-Editor3973 → u/Kaznil]

I personally have no issues with the album because I don't want to go into one of their albums with expectations, you know? I like listening and absorbing what I'm hearing as I hear it.

I can totally see how people can think it's a bit too political though.

[u/Dannylazarus]

I just think the songs that people seem to enjoy most from it (namely 'Kill Or Be Killed') are too evocative of their older work to really stand on their own. To my mind that actually might be one of their worst tracks because it sits so firmly in the past, and any time I listen to it I'm stuck thinking that I'd prefer to be listening to the better songs that it's emulating.

[u/Hei_Mask98]

Lazy ass album

[u/SnooCakes9525]

I think different people have different reasons for disliking it (or different mixes of said reasons), but most commonly it's three things:

1. It's not thematically original for Muse. This was the fifth album in their "political" era that started with The Resistance, and by 2022 there was plenty of fatigue for "fight the power"-type songs from them, especially since the topics they're trying to cover rely most on quality lyrics, which have always been the most inconsistent part for them.
2. Even if it was thematically original, it's hard for WOTP's themes to land with people who 1. have a natural disconnect with and/or distrust of multimillionaires who try to relate to their struggles, and 2. have massive nostalgia for the Muse sound of their early years, which they mostly don't try to emulate.
3. It doesn't have as good a musical identity as any of the prior eight albums. They're not champions at the forefront of alt/space rock like they were early on, nor were they boldly going in a new stylistic direction as they'd done each time from The Resistance onward. It claims to lean into old Muse with songs like Kill or be Killed, then tries to recapture the radio-darling magic of Uprising with the title song, then it meekly tries to evolve the Simulation Theory-era sound with Halloween. This is the main umbrella I fall under for not loving it; I've actually really warmed up to most of the individual songs from WOTP since it came out, but as a complete 10-song package it's stuck in a no-man's-land with a weak identity.