But that will come later. At the moment I'm mostly going to say that I'm not going to do my in-depth analysis of Stephenie Meyer's music choices for the Twilight series (the playlists can be found on her website). It would be too much effort and it's not worth it. I'll keep it to a couple comments. Stephenie Meyer's taste in music isn't bad, but it's not good either; it's a bit better than typical and generic. There's nothing wrong with that. I actually gained a little respect for Stephenie noticing what a big fan of Muse she seems to be, but then I lost that respect realizing that she either doesn't listen to or doesn't at all understand Muse's very political lyrics. I actually made a comment to my wife that it seems Stephenie's favorite band is Muse, and she shared with me yesterday this part of the dedication of Breaking Dawn:
"And thanks also to my favorite band,the very aptly named Muse,for providing a saga's worth of inspiration."
First, this is not the first time she has referred to Twilight as a saga. It is not a saga, it is a series; someone who writes books for a living should really know what is and is not a saga. A saga is a heroic epic, not a love story. Star wars (all three movies) is a saga, Back to the Future is not. The Lord of the Rings is a saga, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is not. Harry Potter comes close to saga by the end of the series, but it is still a series not a saga. The Icelanders invented saga, it would do Stephenie Meyer some good to read one or two*.
Now back to the music. I'm only going to mention Muse. For the first book, Twilight, she includes Time is Running Out. To be fair, this seems to be a love song at first glance; but if she knew her favorite band at all, she'd know it was a subtle anti-war condemnation of the Bush administration, as made clear by the video:
The message, obviously, is that we "pro-war" Republicans are all mind-numbed robots. This video is apparently partially based on Dr. Strangelove, which everyone should see because it's hilarious. New Dawn features, among others, Sing for Absolution, which is another one that is a love song until you watch the video:
That's a very good video, but it's about the fate of the Earth apparently. Eclipse has The Small Print, which is a much less subtle political song than those two, and much harder to mistake for a love song. Those first two at least work on both levels. There's also a much more appropriate song, Hysteria (not all their songs are political):
Since so many people are upset at who will be playing Edward in the movie, maybe the guy from that video would be perfect. He's ripped, he has dark eyes, and he has anger issues. He's probably too old, though, but movies can deal with that sort of thing. Unfortunately Eclipse also has other Muse tracks, such as Newborn (one of my favorite Muse songs, by the way). If you think I'm grasping at straws with my political accusations, this time I have an actual quote from Matthew Bellamy, lead singer for Muse and author of the lyrics:
"It's about a semi-fear of the evolution of technology, and how in reality it's destroying all humanity. My fear is that we can't control it because it's moving faster than we are, so the songs setting myself in a location in the future where the body is no longer important and everyone's plugged into a network. The opening line is 'link it to the world', so it's connecting yourself on a worldwide scale and being born into another reality."Definitely not a love song. This song was actually my introduction to Muse, as it was remixed for the soundtrack to Swordfish. Here's the video:
Weird, huh? Maybe because of the weird girl Stephenie thought it would be appropriate. Blackout seems to walk the line between love song and political song. I don't have a video or other reference to say which, but based on the trends of Muse's lyrics, I'd lean toward political song. Yes Please and Falling Away with you may or may not have political undertones as well, but are definitely appropriate as love songs (see, I can be fair!).
Breaking Dawn has Muse's cover of Can't Take My Eyes Off of You, which is definitely a fine love song; but Breaking Dawn also has the real bafflers of all the playlists. First of all it has the intro track to their album Absolution, which Bellamy has stated focuses on themes of fear and mistrust (also personal achievement and joy, admittedly), and was partially inspired by the start of the Iraq War, which they obviously oppose. This intro track is nothing more than drums and marching noises, with some unintelligible shouts at the end that sound like Hitler, probably implying that the U.S. invasion of Iraq is the moral equivalent of Hitler invading Poland. Also, there's no music in this track. It's a real puzzler why it would be included. Then she includes the song Assassin, which is not at all a love song and wouldn't even be appropriate for any conflict between vampires and werewolves unless it has to do with Jacob starting a new pack (I read the plot synopses on Wikipedia, and that's more than enough for me). Assassin includes these lyrics:
"War is overdueThe time has come for you
To shoot your leaders down
Join forces underground
[...]
Aim, shoot, kill your leaders,
Aim, shoot, kill...
Oppose and disagree
Destroy Demonocracy"
Based on Muse's track record I don't think there's any doubt they're talking about overthrowing the oppressive Bush regime, rather than Saddam or Ahmedinejad or Putin. Then guess what? The most inappropriate song of all, and the real deal breaker for me, proof Stephenie either doesn't understand her favorite band or is subliminably trying to affect the opinions of her readers, she includes Take a Bow, which I already covered in detail. That really made me laugh.
Wow, this was more than I intended to say! Don't get me wrong, Muse is one of my favorite bands, too. It's just not the best band overall to represent the Twilight series, and she has more Muse songs than songs from any other band. Again, fans of Twilight, don't take this post personally! I don't want to try to convince you to not read or not like Twilight, I just want to understand the appeal. I also wish Stephenie Meyer had put more thought into the music she put in her playlists. Oh, well. I hope you all enjoy Muse, just don't accept their messages.
I will leave you with one more non-Twilight thing that made me laugh with its ridiculousness, but may give you nightmares, and that is this ad from the World Wide Fund for Nature that I stumbled across:
Hahahaha!
*If anyone wants to know what to get me for my birthday or Christmas, The Sagas of Icelanders is a book I've always wanted to read.
4 comments:
While I found the analysis interesting, I don't think it's fair to pass judgment on Stephenie Meyer for song choice unless you've read the series. A lot of the songs she includes on her playlists are very closely related to specific points in each book - and while all of the books are definitely part of a "love story", Muse's songs such as the Intro and Assassin are indeed not romantic, nor are they intended to be taken as such in the context of the book. I am almost certain Ms. Meyer knows this, since there is an element of impending doom (and an unprecedented opposition to the "government" of her vampires) in the section of the book to which the songs connect, and the word "demonocracy" seems thrillingly appropriate for the passage.
Also, I'm sure the actual musical elements of Muse can be inspiration enough for writing her books. Personally I fall in love with a song before I analyze every lyric. Often song lyrics are unexpected once you actually listen to or read them, and can be deceptively divergent from the tone. Matthew Bellamy's haunting voice can very well be enough to inspire a particularly haunting scene or mood.
On the point concerning the word "saga", although what you say is true, I think the evolution of semantics ought not to be discounted... And Meyer shouldn't bear the burden of word misuse alone, for the saga/series interchangeability is found all over the place nowadays.
So perhaps you'll decide to un-puzzle yourself and read the series? It might change your mind about arguing "...she includes the song Assassin, which is not at all a love song...", upon discovering that part of the book doesn't at all require a ballad, but more of a death march... This comment may have overstayed its welcome, but I just don't approve of your passing judgment on a subject (namely, Meyer's books) that you may not entirely understand ;-)
Thank you for your comment, Alex. You make some good arguments, and I can tell some thought went into your comment. I appreciate that. I still disagree, though, and if I can get caught up on my homework I will post a response hopefully in the next few days. There are more comments I want to make on Muse, anyway, since they are one of my favorite bands.
Just so you know, I have Twilight and it was excruciatingly bad. I haven't read any of the sequels, but my wife has and several of my friends as well, and I've read synopses, so I'm knowledgeable enough as far as Twilight goes.
While I respect your opinion regarding her books (it's absurd to think that any one book should be liked by everyone, nor would I ever desire such a phenomenon), liking or not liking the books wasn't part of your original blog, but the relevance of Muse's music to her series and the question of her understanding regarding these songs. I sought with my comments to refute the extent to which you insisted that Muse didn't belong on her playlists, while you also demonstrated a limited knowledge of the contents of the books. That's my main beef with arguments like yours - asserting a point with limited knowledge about aspects of the argument's subject, and that's all I was really trying to say.
I forced myself all the way through Twilight, and if you want to debate the quality (or lack thereof) of Stephenie Meyer's writing you should read my comments here:
http://darkcenteroftheuniverseblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/good-books-and-bad-books.html
I am well acquainted with the contents of Twilight, having read the book all the way through. I am somewhat acquainted with its sequels, since many of my friends (including my wife) have read them and discussed them with me, and I have also read detailed plot synopses of all of the books.
I encourage you to read this post, as I think it may clear things up for you. I think that with anything, whether it is a book, movie, song, art, or even food, there are two reasons a person may not like it. Either it is simply a matter of different tastes, or it could be a matter of quality. I don't normally read romance novels, as a matter of taste; this isn't to say the quality of writing is not good. I have read several books that are exactly my taste, but that are horribly written. Twilight is not my taste in literature, and it is also badly written.
For future reference, I do not post a lengthy argument for or against something with no knowledge of the topic. If I post on a topic, it means I have done the necessary research. I do, however, welcome opposing points of view, and look forward to hearing your response to my review of Twilight (not just my thoughts on Meyer and Muse).
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