Drones
by Muse

Album: Drones (2015)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the title song and closing track of Muse's Drones album. Frontman Matt Bellamy spoke to Radio 1's Annie Mac, explaining that the album was "a modern metaphor for what it is to lose empathy." He continued: "I think that through modern technology, and obviously through drone warfare in particular, it's possible to actually do quite horrific things by remote control, at a great distance, without actually feeling any of the consequences, or even feeling responsible in some way."

    "The next step in drones is gonna be autonomous drones, which actually make 'kill' decisions themselves, where no humans are involved," Bellamy added.
  • Based on the choral music of Italian composer Giovanni Gabrieli, there are no instruments on this track - simply Matt Bellamy's voice looped over and over into a choir-of-one. "It's a lament for the victims," Bellamy told NME. "It ends on the ghostly chorus of the forgotten. They will never see justice and they have been killed by a robot. There is something inherently tragic about humanity there."
  • Matt Bellamy revealed to Rolling Stone that he was reading the book Predators: The CIA's Drone War on al Qaeda by Professor Brian Glyn Williams while writing the album.

    "I was shocked. I didn't know how prolific drone usage has been," he said. "I always perceived Obama as an all-around likable guy. But from reading the book, you find out that most mornings he wakes up, has a breakfast and then goes down to the war room and makes what they call 'kill decisions.' He makes that decision based on a long chain of intelligence people who, as we all know, can be very unreliable."
  • The Muse trio achieved their first #1 album on the Billboard 200, when Drones bowed atop the list. The group had previously peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200, with its 2012 long-player The 2nd Law.

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