10 INCREDIBLE Guitar Secrets In Rock Songs You Totally Missed
9. Muse's Classical Dreams - Plug In Baby
Muse's music oftentimes feels like its coming from the other end of the universe. Ever since finding their groove on Origin of Symmetry, Matt Bellamy and co. have always found ways to make their anthemic rock and roll feel like its pulled right out of the stratosphere. Given their more otherworldly sounds, it's strange that one of the band's best riffs actually came straight out of the classical songbook.
From its very beginning, "Plug In Baby" is one of the greatest songs in the band's catalog, with Bellamy's electric guitar leading the charge. While many would probably see the steady climbing lick as just another one of the band's weird experiments, most of the lick is nothing more than climbing up the harmonic minor scale.
Though that may seem like just another piece of music theory jargon, this was one of the main scales favored by Bach, which is used prominently in his "Fugue in D Minor."
Any other self-respecting music lawyer would probably cry "PLAGIARISM!" on these hard rock punks, but the band were able to take that classical foundation and turn it into one of the catchiest licks of the 21st century. When other rock bands were going back to basics, Muse were showing their strengths as musical wizards.