I thought this might be out here by now, but here is the first of the officially commissioned tunes for the 2012 Olympic games:

Muse - Survival

It's a strange thing, it must be said. I can't decide whether they are actually taking the piss with this. It's like a Queen/ELO/Chas and Dave/Metallica mash up.
It's just the first of many to be released each week, with other contributions coming from Elton John, Dizzee Rascal, The Chemical Brothers and Delphic. I think I'm most disappointed by The Chemical Brothers choosing to contribute, mainly because I'm expecting some sort of tedious anthem that athletes are going to enter the arena to. I hope they prove me wrong.

Sean of the Shed wrote:


I refuse to listen to it, partly because it's Muse obviously but also because it has no hope of being as good as that description.

I heard a bit of this on the telly the other day, and it seemed to have the most ludicrous backing vocals since Wet Wet Wet rolled Temptation out.

As Sean suggests, it's hard to believe that they aren't taking the piss.

A friend is playing in the live band, as part of Danny Boyle's Ye Olde England thing, dressed up as an 18c peasant (makes a change from the usual 20c peasant look). It all sounds hilarious, and nuts.

GSTQ and Stand and Deliver are both being played. :-)

As for the Chemies - I can't imagine them doing anything that's not good, either. The whole ceremony sounds like a proper weird mash-up ... certainly something you don't see and hear every day.

Refreshing to hear that Manic Street Preachers turned down the invitation to appear at the opening ceremony because of the presence of the queen.

A friend's son is in the Rochester Cathedral choir and they had to dress up as Victorian urchins for the Christmas Songs Of Praise.

Unfortunately he's just reaching the age where that seemed like the most embarrassing thing that could possibly be inflicted upon him. I have tried to suggest that a life well lived will have far more embarrassing episodes than that to come.

What I don't quite get is the Specials playing the closing concert in Hyde Park, given the whole eyes of the world upon us thing. Are they going to play a set of instrumentals?

Presumably they won't come on to the 1981=2011 video montage that they had for last year's tour.

When 'aren't' Muse taking the piss?

Zawisza Benjmoszcz wrote:


The Hyde Park gigs appear to be linked to the Olympics ceremonies in only the flimsiest of ways. They'll be showing a section of the goings on from the stadium on screens at the gig and, er, that appears to be it so far.

They're not even any plans to televise them as yet. To the bands involved, it really is pretty much just a gig.

Jah Tomaszewski wrote:


This. I've just listened to the song, it's superb. Practically every line is a cliche and as Sean says, there are elements of Queen, Chas and Dave etc. but also Black Dice (the post orchestration intro) Sepultura (the ending) nods to Communist Russia and just general mentalness.

We've got a display of all the London Olympic artwork at our workplace and as you'd expect, it universally disappoints with it's over-abstraction and cleverness. This Muse song is abstract and clever, but a lot of f*cking fun too.

BC - that makes it sound a lot more appealing than the fully Olympified do I'd imagined.

Maybe NO will wheel Steve Redgrave out to do the John Barnes rap, in a nod to the occasion.