Simulation Theory (album)

Simulation Theory is the eighth studio album by English rock band Muse, to be released on 9 November 2018 through Warner Bros. Records and Helium-3. Co-produced by the band with Rich Costey, Mike Elizondo, Shellback, and Timbaland, it is a synth-rock album with themes of simulation and centering on the idea of "fantasy becoming real". Contrasting the band's previous three albums which dealt with darker themes, the band sought lighter influences from science fiction and 1980s pop culture and produced the album one track at a time without a focus on a greater narrative or theme. Recording began at AIR Studios in London in early 2017 with Elizondo, creating three tracks before embarking on a midyear tour of North America. Production restarted in Los Angeles in late 2017 with Costey, who had co-produced the band's 2003 album Absolution and 2006 album Black Holes and Revelations. "Era-blending" juxtapositioning and the contemporary political climate of the United States informed the album's music and lyrics.

The album cover for Simulation Theory, designed by Stranger Things artist Kyle Lambert, and its music videos, directed by Miike Snow and Twin Shadow collaborator Lance Drake, shared the album's 1980s pop culture and science fiction influences, homaging Back to the Future, Critters, Ghostbusters, Max Headroom, Michael Jackson's Thriller, and Teen Wolf. The album was preceded by the release of singles "Dig Down", "Thought Contagion", "Something Human", "The Dark Side", and "Pressure", along with a 2018 festival tour of North America. It will be available alongside two deluxe editions featuring alternate versions of its tracks. A headline tour of North America and Europe in 2019 is also planned.

Background
Following Black Holes and Revelations in 2006, Muse released three concept albums – The Resistance, The 2nd Law, and Drones – with darker themes such as government oppression, energy depletion, and remote warfare respectively. Each album was followed with tours with elaborate stage designs, visual effects, and pyrotechnic programmes. Following the conclusion of the Drones World Tour, the band and tour director Glen Rowe expressed an eagerness to design a new more ambitious tour, but with a different musical direction. Singer and guitarist Matt Bellamy entertained the possibility of experimenting with hip hop or making another attempt at creating a stripped-back acoustic sound. Drummer Dominic Howard concurred with the idea of moving away from concept albums, though suggested that the band could release singles or extended plays instead of albums to target audiences who did not listen to albums.

Composition
Simulation Theory is a synth-rock album that explores the role of simulation in society, and the simulation hypothesis. Biographer Mark Beaumont wrote that it would likely be lead songwriter Matt Bellamy's "dissection of the idea that we're all just lumps of code in the shape of unusually lumpy sims." The album takes on a lighter science fiction theme, with "fantasy becoming real" cited by Bellamy as a core idea of the album, in contrast to the band's previous three albums which respectively took on darker themes. "Something Human", the sixth track on the album, is a folk rock-inspired song that was written to counteract the "dark vibe" of Drones and the Drones World Tour, described by Bellamy as a "more tender, down-to-earth, simplistic song" that describes the burnout and homesickness he felt towards the end of the tour. Musically, the band strived to achieve "era-blending" to create something that did not necessarily sound as if it "belonged" to an era; the music of Lana Del Rey, where 50s-style music is juxtaposed with lyrics concerning modern ideals such as "Video Games", was cited as an example of "era-blending" by Bellamy. The album's opening track, "Algorithm", features a musical juxtaposition between classical piano and 80s synthesizers and chiptunes. The third track, "Pressure", is a power pop track with contrasting horns and guitars, reminiscent of nerd rock, performing the song's rock-inspired main riff. Two additional riffs feature in the song, with the riffs interchanging often throughout the track.

Political themes are also present throughout the album. "Dig Down", the album's tenth track and one of the first to be written, was penned by Bellamy as a reaction to the social and political climate following the Brexit referendum and the 2016 United States presidential election, hoping to "give inspiration, optimism and hope to people to fight for the causes they believe in." "Thought Contagion", the album's seventh track, was written in late 2017 following the band's move to Los Angeles, California, and the restart of production on the album. The song's verses stemmed off Bellamy's "anxieties and feelings" from observing American news stations at the time, and its chorus recalls Bellamy's concerns about the power misinformed or ideological people can have over their audiences. The track's title and hook was inspired by literature written by Richard Dawkins, where he compared the spread of thoughts, "regardless of their accuracy and truth", to a viral disease.

Recording
Muse began writing and recording their eighth studio album following the conclusion of the Drones World Tour in late 2016. The band spent time at AIR Studios in London, England, with producer Mike Elizondo until they left to embark on a tour of North America with PVRIS and Thirty Seconds to Mars, which began on 20 May 2017. Three tracks were written and recorded during these sessions; information that had been relayed by the band to a fan that visited them at AIR Studios in March 2017. One of the tracks, "Dig Down", was released following the conclusion of these sessions on 18 May 2017. At the end of the tour, the band moved to Los Angeles, California, to restart production on the album, this time with long-time collaborator Rich Costey, who had previously co-produced Absolution and Black Holes and Revelations.

Muse took a different approach to recording Simulation Theory in contrast to their previous albums, working on each track one by one, rather than the entire album across the whole production cycle. Bellamy stated that it allowed the band to focus on individual tracks instead of dividing attention across multiple tracks and their potential overall sound and themes, adding that "it's nice for us to not be multitasking twelve songs at once and always thinking about the whole." The band hoped that it would increase the individual quality of the songs, and they did not have a particular theme for the album in mind, even halfway through its production. One of the first tracks to be produced with Costey was "Thought Contagion", based off a bassline and theremin melody conceived by Bellamy. The band began recording the track in November, with the original theremin melody being swapped out for a ten-layer vocal chorus performed by Bellamy and Chris Wolstenholme. The track's verses were originally intended to be supported by a heavier, arena-style drum sequence, before experimentation with programming led the band to a trap-inspired drum sound that emulated the Roland TR-808. The folk rock-inspired track "Something Human" was also co-produced with Costey. Shellback and Timbaland also co-produced tracks on the album.

Artwork
The album cover for Simulation Theory was designed by British visual artist Kyle Lambert, who had worked on the television series Stranger Things. It is retro-themed with a focus on 1980s aesthetics, prompting comparisons by critics to Lambert's earlier work and similar aesthetics used in both 1980s and contemporary media. The cover for the "super deluxe" version of the album was designed by Paul Shipper, who had designed the Dolby Cinema posters for Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures films such as Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Avengers: Infinity War. It features an array of characters, including members of the band, in a stylistic arrangement similar to Shipper's previous work.

Promotion
Music from Simulation Theory was teased as early as April 2017, when the band shared footage from their early studio sessions on social media witch captions alerting followers to new material "coming soon". More cryptic teasers were published in the weeks following. Following these teasers, "Dig Down", a product of the band's first recording sessions for the album, was released on 18 May 2017, along with its music video. The song later became a staple on the band's 2017 North American Tour as the show's opening performance. After the conclusion of the tour and band's return to the studio, "Thought Contagion" was being teased as the band's next release, along with up to three more tracks in 2018 prior to the release of their next album. "Thought Contagion" was released on 15 February 2018 with its accompanying music video. After asserting a 2018 release of the album in a message to fans published in April 2018, Muse continued to post in-studio footage on social media in the weeks following. The band also appeared as headliners at a number of festival shows in the United States in 2018, including Bonnaroo, BottleRock, and Carolina Rebellion festivals.

On 20 July 2018, a November release for the album was made official by the band, along with the release of the lead single "Something Human", alongside its accompanying music video. The video included an easter egg where the album's title, Simulation Theory, is displayed on the label of a VHS cassette. Simulation Theory was announced on 30 August 2018, with the album's artwork, track listing, and release date being detailed in a press release and promotional landing page on the band's website. Pre-orders for the album's standard, deluxe, and "super deluxe" editions began on the same day. The deluxe and super deluxe editions feature alternate versions of the album's tracks, referred to as "alternate reality versions", including a version of "Pressure" performed by the UCLA Bruin Marching Band, a gospel rendition of "Dig Down", a live version of "Thought Contagion" and acoustic renditions of "Propaganda", "Something Human", and "The Void". A fourth single promoting the album, "The Dark Side", was also released on 30 August, followed by "Pressure" on 27 September. Both were simultaneously released with accompanying music videos.

Music videos
Music videos for all eleven tracks on Simulation Theory will be produced, with every video forming a single narrative focused on "digital containment and escape." Much like the album, the videos are science fiction-themed, with a focus on nostalgic 1980s-inspired aesthetics and visual effects. Each of the videos were directed by American filmmaker Lance Drake, noted for his work with Miike Snow and Twin Shadow, who collaborated with the band to create a "world-building mentality" for the project. The first video produced for the project was "Dig Down", which starred model and former athlete Lauren Wasser as a protagonist attempting to escape a high-security facility. The action-heavy video served as a literal interpretation of the song's lyrics, based on Wasser's publicised experience with toxic shock syndrome. Drake had intended to film a video with Wasser starring prior to his involvement with Muse, and "Dig Down"'s themes of unity and survival inspired him to create a story centered around her. Bellamy appears in the video through cathode ray tube television sets dressed up as 80s cyberpunk character Max Headroom. The album's second video, "Thought Contagion", references the 1983 music video Michael Jackson's Thriller, centering around a love story involving a vampire antagonist illustrated through choreography and neon lighting. Muse held an open casting call for dancers and extras for the video, welcoming "super edgy" punk characters with "wild hair", tattoos, and piercings.

The third video to be released, "Something Human", follows Bellamy as he attempts to return a VHS cassette to a video rental shop before turning into a werewolf, while being chased by police portrayed by band mates Dominic Howard and Chris Wolstenholme. Drake aimed to create an "epic journey" out of a simple task, such as returning a tape, while continuing the narrative of the previous two videos. Continuing the 1980s-inspired visual style, the video takes place in a simulation, and makes more direct references to 80s media, such as Back to the Future and Teen Wolf; films that Bellamy had enjoyed during his childhood and wanted to recall as part of the video's simulation setting. The following video, "The Dark Side", continues where the ending of "Something Human" left off and features Bellamy driving through a simulated dystopian landscape populated by giant robots. The video has invited comparisons to Cyberpunk and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City by critics. The album's fifth music video, "Pressure", continues the 1980s pop culture references, and stars the band as performers at a homecoming dance akin to a scene from Back to the Future, and Terry Crews as a chaperone who uses a Ghostbusters-esque proton pack to subdue an outbreak of gremlin-like creatures. Homages to Critters, the work of John Hughes, and Stranger Things have also been identified by critics.

Tour
In September 2018, Muse revealed through a post on Twitter the name of twenty cities in North America and seventeen cities in Europe that the band intended to visit on their 2019 headline tour. In the same post, the band promised early access to tickets for the tour for people who pre-ordered the album. Technology will be a focus in the design of the tour, with an intent to showcase "something that no one’s ever seen before". Early ideas for the tour included a system of magnets that would allow the band to levitate without wires.

Personnel
Credits adapted from the singles "Dig Down", "Pressure", "Something Human", "The Dark Side", and "Thought Contagion".

Muse
 * Matt Bellamy – guitar and lead vocals (track 2, 3, 6, 7, 10)
 * Dominic Howard – drums (track 2, 3, 6, 7, 10), backing vocals (track 7)
 * Chris Wolstenholme – bass (track 2, 3, 6, 7, 10), backing vocals (track 2, 3, 7, 10)

Additional Musicians
 * David Campbell – brass (track 3)
 * Mike Elizondo – keyboard (track 10)

Production
 * Laurence Anslow – assistant engineer (track 10)
 * Brent Arrowood – assistant engineer (track 10)
 * Tom Bailey - assistant engineer (track 6)
 * Tyler Beans – assistant engineer (track 2, 3, 7), assistant producer (track 6)
 * Jeremy Berman - "assistant" [sic] (track 2, 3, 7)
 * Rob Bisel – assistant engineer (track 2, 3, 7), assistant producer (track 6)
 * Phillip Broussard – assistant engineer (track 10), assistant producer (track 6)
 * Adrian Bushby – assistant engineer (track 10)
 * Tommaso Colliva – assistant engineer (track 6)
 * Martin Cooke – assistant engineer (track 7), assistant producer (track 6)
 * Rich Costey – producer (track 2, 3, 6, 7), engineer (track 6) , mastering (track 7)
 * Mike Elizondo – producer and programmer (track 10)
 * Nick Fournier – assistant producer (track 6)
 * Michael Freeman – mixing (track 2, 6, 10)
 * Chris Gehringer – mastering (track 7)
 * Noah Goldstein – assistant producer (track 6)
 * Sam Grubbs - "assistant" [sic] (track 2, 3), assistant producer (track 7)
 * Adam Hawkins - engineer (track 2, 3, 6, 7, 10), mixing (track 3, 7)
 * Ted Jensen - mastering (track 10)
 * Aleks Von Korff - assistant engineer (track 2, 3, 7), assistant producer (track 6)
 * Randy Merrill - mastering (track 6)
 * Dylan Neustadter - "assistant" [sic] (track 2, 3), assistant producer (track 7)
 * John Prestage – assistant engineer (track 10)
 * Spike Stent – mixing (track 2, 6, 10)
 * Chris Whitemyer - "assistant" [sic] (track 3, 7)
 * Colin Willard - "assistant" [sic] (track 3), assistant producer (track 7)