…before I give it a rest for the time being. As I typed that I realized this post will be full of irony as I make an argument against writers who obsess over particular topics. Well, be not unconvinced.

I’ll write up front that I do not have the boatload of evidence at hand to back this up. I’d hope that my saying what the case has been would be enough for that really to have been the case but that’s unscientific of me and almost entirely unacceptable in this overly skeptical, “pics or it didn’t happen” religious-reactionary portion of American intellectual culture I’ve wedged myself into through no fault of my own. But I do I have one linkable review, the tipping point for me, the straw that mutilated that pitiable pack animal, back broken and shoved halfway through the eye of a needle, the poor bastard.

It was from Rolling Stone, an issue from June of this year. Writer Christian Hoard, who I’ve never met but whose basement I hope is adorned with a Flandersian plaque that reads, “Bless this Mess,” wrote a review of the soundtrack of the most recent Twilight movie. Muse offered up a song partly because they are the writer Stephenie Meyer’s favorite band, proving beyond a doubt that her taste can’t be all bad. The song was called “Neutron Star Collision (Love is Forever).” Hoard had this to say:

Muse’s hilariously grandiose “Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever) … sounds like Radiohead covering Journey.

It’d be the last time I’d ever want to read a writer in Rolling Stone compare Muse to Radiohead.

I understand that the magazine, which I’d read for a decade, only holds a certain amount of responsibility when it comes to reviewing music. It’s been around forever and the readers it has retained over the last few decades are the ones who would likely want to be up on what Tom Petty’s up to this month, or Bruce Springsteen, or John Mellencamp, or Neil Young, or even Paul McCartney, bless them all, even if what they’re doing, while being done by the very famous, isn’t necessarily part of the musical mainstream right now, with the occasional exception of Springsteen. I understand they’re carrying a mantle, and I cut them the requisite slack.

The magazine of course also contains articles on politics and certainly has good movie reviews, so it’s scope is already broader than music-only magazines. But while it doesn’t abdicate the responsibility of covering modern music I think it comes damn close, or even does so halfheartedly, and I can’t abide either of those, but the latter, more. I take particular offense to lazy reviews of Muse that compare them to Radiohead at every turn because they don’t sound like Radiohead. They don’t now, and they may never have.

The only obvious connection is the falsettos used now more often by Thom Yorke, and less often by Matt Bellamy. Both emulate Jeff Buckley, but that influence has been lost to these reviews for howeverlong. Bellamy’s voice on their earliest album Showbiz is awfully high, on pitch but delicate, and then might be the closest to Thom Yorke’s on any album, particularly tracks three and four of The Bends. But I wish these reviewers would keep in mind that The Bends preceded Showbiz by a half-decade and by the time Muse’s album came out, Radiohead had stopped playing guitars almost altogether and what was sung in falsetto had little traditional melody to it and none that resembled the operatic lushness of Buckley’s example. Lumping the sounds together makes no sense and cuts each band short.

Furthermore, and now getting back to what should be Rolling Stone‘s wheelhouse, Muse is only infrequently compared to Queen, when over the last two albums Matt Bellamy has come closer than anyone else to becoming both Freddie Mercury and Brian May at the same time. That’s high, high praise but based on the recordings, the performances and the following, I think it’s apt. In Rolling Stone‘s review of The Resistance, Muse’s 2009 and most recent album (predating the Twilight song), the reviewer Jody Rosen wrote, “They borrow shamelessly from Radiohead and Queen without the former’s musical invention or the latter’s cheeky swagger.” Again with the Radiohead. Great. But finally a mention of Queen! That group Queen was an animal all its own, from what I’ve heard, probably not to be topped but only approached. But the cheeky swagger comes off more in concert footage I’ve seen – which is a lot of it – and less in the recordings, I’d say. I wonder if this reviewer has seen Matt Bellamy play a guitar solo wearing a highly reflective silver jumpsuit and sunglasses that light up.

But I’m glad Jody Rosen mentioned Queen because if anything, that’s the kind of band Rolling Stone should be including in these reviews whenever it’s applicable. If they’re trying to make sense of modern bands from a particular stronghold i.e. having one foot in the past covering all these older artists, then older and more direct influences on modern bands can only serve to help its average reader understand and make a better and more thorough comparison. Only comparing them to Radiohead is stubborn and short-sighted, and in my mind, only more firmly embeds Rolling Stone‘s musical point of view in an increasingly distant past.