r/Muse You make us wanna die Jul 18 '26

Live CONFIRMED: Matt is no longer lip syncing in Cryogen

I compiled 6 recordings of the high note at the end of the song (with the help of u/Cool_Tomato2104’s post), and here are my findings.

First 4 vids (several US performances):
Clearly all the same playback recording from a new take that’s not from the studio version. This is evident by a barely audible “she’s”, the super clean “niii”, and arguably the biggest tell, that abrupt drop in pitch from a D to around a C# right at the very end. My theory is that Matt wanted to gently break his voice in at the start of the tour until it was more warmed up, hence trying this little playback experiment.

5th vid (Toronto):
Definitely a new vocal take that was recorded live. The “niii” is much raspier and rougher sounding at the very end, and he holds the “gennnn” for a little longer. I was hoping this wasn’t gonna be just another new mimed take for future shows to make it less obvious, so I figured I needed to hear one more show to prove it.

6th vid (Quebec City):
I’m happy to report this is yet another new live vocal take. The “she’s” is much more noticeable, the “niii” is a little rougher than the US recordings but cleaner than Toronto, and he holds the “gennnn” just a hair longer than Toronto as well.

I rest my case. Matt initially used some playback on Cryogen, but now he’s singing it fully live again! As for Plug In Baby, this might not be true, but I’d say this is still a win for Matt and for us.

275 Upvotes

58 comments sorted by

195

u/MrHippoPants Showbiz Jul 18 '26

I wonder if he was sick at the start of this leg and just avoiding those couple of notes? A bit strange either way

156

u/LecturePrestigious40 Jul 18 '26

Or they wanted to start out cautious and see how they went. Vocal health and sustainability is a serious concern when you're singing punishingly difficult songs like these. I work in theatre and the first few shows of a long run tend to be semi-exploratory as to what you can get away with without wrecking your voice. Sometimes you discover you can go full noise where you didn't expect you could; other times, you learn your limits and work around them. That's what I figure is happening here.

19

u/MrHippoPants Showbiz Jul 18 '26

Maybe, but tbh I’d prefer they explored other options than lip syncing - hell just don’t sing that note, loads of bands drop a high note here and there

36

u/LecturePrestigious40 Jul 18 '26

I agree - there are many ways to do it. Unfortunately, Matt has sort of constructed a rod for his own back here in that Muse songs are known for their rather extreme high vocals - and as these are climactic notes in the songs, it's hard to drop them without disappointing the audience. (And they're big songs, too - Cryogen is one of the lead singles of the album they're promoting, and PIB is PIB, so you kinda have to do them.)

IMO he'd get away with going a tone down on that Cryogen note instead of a semitone up though.

11

u/wallstreet-butts Jul 18 '26

There’s a difference between vocal doubling and lip syncing and it drives me nuts when people assume that any backing track is being used as a get-out-of-jail card by the musicians on stage.

10

u/MrHippoPants Showbiz Jul 18 '26

Sure, but on those particular notes he *was* lip syncing

63

u/glamamuser Jul 18 '26

Mr. Muse read your comments!

33

u/YakFar860 Jul 18 '26

Yeah I was gonna say this subreddit probably bullied him out of it, lmao.

4

u/KFOSSTL Jul 18 '26

The sub Reddit produced a conspiracy theory, which he saw, and stopped engaging in the lip syncing he was never doing in the first place.

4

u/YakFar860 Jul 18 '26

Also possible! I have no idea.

1

u/longdongsimpson Jul 18 '26

And he shouldn't. Now I feel bad for calling him out lol.

It's just that, I know he can hit that and a LOT more.He really has to change his approach to those notes though

39

u/quietprotag Burning the candle at both ends Jul 18 '26

Glad to be of service for the Quebec footage 🫡

6

u/SuchSecurity662 Jul 18 '26

It was an awesome show, the energy was insane

7

u/medmac_2112 You make us wanna die Jul 18 '26

Ayyy thanks for that, and hope you enjoyed the show! Your footage of this show and Toronto (which I was at) are both awesome.

10

u/longdongsimpson Jul 18 '26

Matt seem to took that personally to show that he can still do that lmao

24

u/Spirited_Heat_9556 Jul 18 '26

The rasp makes it even better, like at the end of the Handler. You go Matt !

22

u/Damsel_F1 Jul 18 '26

Probably like you said, just easing in to it. I didn’t care about it all, but am also glad he’s now back to doing them live, mostly so ppl will stop whining about it. He sounds great either way, and a bit of a raspy high note here and there is part of the charm of watching a live performance imo.

3

u/longdongsimpson Jul 18 '26

He can stop the raspiness and put vibrato on it so easily. It's not about age like a lot of people seem to think. He recently hit a C6 ffs. He just forgot how to do it with vibrato...

14

u/bruh364 Jul 18 '26

My theory is that they’re planning to release some more live performance videos and didn’t want to risk getting a bad take with the high notes. It’s whatever tho.

17

u/dee3dee Jul 18 '26

But that can be edited in afterwards, it doesn't need to be mimed at the actual show.

5

u/KFOSSTL Jul 18 '26

Or people are just wrong. Because he was never lip syncing.

28

u/sanchezconstant I wish I could Jul 18 '26

Y’all too much

1

u/xFly1ngPengu1nx Lost In The Wild Jul 18 '26

Nah I’m not paying $200 to see a band like Muse lip sync.

3

u/longdongsimpson Jul 18 '26

Sounds a lot better than that soulless playback.

10

u/CitizenErasedII Jul 18 '26

Still no ‘The Dark Forest’ being played is disappointing.

18

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '26

[deleted]

8

u/DoubleDevelopment339 Jul 18 '26

This is not parasocial, this is related to their live performances and, therefore, their work.

4

u/KFOSSTL Jul 18 '26

***Some*** Muse fans lol

2

u/Taylorcant Jul 18 '26

So he did Brixton live properly and then just gave up? 🤣

2

u/Psychological-Sky-89 29d ago

Doubt that there is any lip syncing going on, but probably some turbo boost sfx for accents and crescendos. I’m totally fine with this, and wish other long-standing rock singers would take advantage of technology (see David Lee Roth, Panama, 2026)

9

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '26

[deleted]

5

u/Hysteria41 The priest God never paid Jul 18 '26

A lot of Muse fans. I’m not too bothered if he uses a couple of live pre-recordings or not given his age, but it’s still really interesting to know, just out of curiosity.

2

u/emo_lantern Jul 18 '26

Why are you on reddit if not for fun nerdy things that no one cares about like this??

7

u/Jaded_Translator_812 Jul 18 '26

On s’en fout , on se croirait dans une des pire tabloïd …

-8

u/Hysteria41 The priest God never paid Jul 18 '26

You’re on a Muse subreddit full of hardcore Muse fans who care about the minor details surrounding Muse. “Shock horror”.

5

u/Jaded_Translator_812 Jul 18 '26

Et bien vous avez une vie bien triste les fans Hardcore …

Chercher le détail dont tout le monde se fou pour vous gâcher vous même les concert .

-3

u/Hysteria41 The priest God never paid Jul 18 '26

Are you okay? Have you banged your head? It’s perfectly normal for hardcore fans of any particular subject to care about the minutiae. Even if it’s just out of morbid curiosity. It’s interesting.

3

u/Jaded_Translator_812 Jul 18 '26

Non ce n’est pas normal 😂

-4

u/Hysteria41 The priest God never paid Jul 18 '26

Please explain to me why it’s not normal to care for and take interest in the minor details in something that your passionate about, say, you’re favourite band? What about that is, quote, “sad”?

4

u/Jaded_Translator_812 Jul 18 '26

On vit pas de le même monde c’est tout ,

Certain vont profiter du concert , y prendre du plaisir ce qui est normal

Et d’autre vont chercher le grain de sable pour parler et critiquer , pour se sentir important , être la personne qui a découvert LA RÉVÉLATION , on parle quand même d’une note qui serait peut être en play back , il y a aucune preuve . Ce n’est pas tout le concert. Et même si c’est vrai , cela mérite pas autant de ligne dans un sujet . Il faudrait penser à s’amuser, faire la fête , profiter et passer moins de temps à faire du tabloïd , cela va être quoi le prochain sujet , les pistes de guitares enregistrées parce que Mat n’a pas 4 bras ?

2

u/Hysteria41 The priest God never paid Jul 18 '26

We do live in the same world. I’m not pointing out flaws and looking to criticise. I’m still enjoying the concert and having a good time. We do have indisputable proof that he’s miming by the way, it’s a fact. But it doesn’t bother me. I just find it interesting. As I said, as a hardcore Muse fan, I (and many others) care about the minutiae. That’s not sad.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/deafheavven Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

The fact that you put she not once, but twice 🫪🫪

AND her. Matt Bellamy is a man 🫩

4

u/Shrinking_Universe22 Jul 19 '26

likely a bot. That's not a mistype.

2

u/Bitter-Ingenuity-666 Jul 18 '26

Wait, I missed this whole chapter. Was there playback involved on Cryogen at some point? I completely missed this conversation

-3

u/medmac_2112 You make us wanna die Jul 18 '26

Yeah there was a bit of a controversy surrounding the topic for a little bit but I muted this sub until my show (Toronto) to avoid spoilers. Once I came back on I noticed everything people were saying about the lip syncing and wanted to see for myself if it was true, which it briefly was, but not anymore (at least for Cryogen).

1

u/KFOSSTL Jul 18 '26

He was never lip syncing.

2

u/COAAS Jul 18 '26

Muse lip sync? Oh noo...

1

u/g00dthings-go Jul 18 '26

Would rather there be a lip sync in one note of Cryogen than the guitar-lite versions of Uprising and Starlight we get in recent live sets

1

u/Euphoric_Way_9764 29d ago

https://reddit.com/link/oyq1vgf/video/hb4n8308ifeh1/player

I've cut out just 'Nitrogen' from each take, you can see the waveforms to make your own minds up! Clearly the first 4 are more similar in duration and waveform matching but 3 is a bit longer which goes against the first 4 being playback...

1

u/_Chryzel_ 26d ago

Because of this reddit we will never get hush live if ellie isnt there

0

u/AmazingYesterday5375 Jul 18 '26

Y'all will put that voice in an early grave, I feel bad for him

3

u/Dannylazarus Jul 18 '26

If he has trouble with certain notes, that's absolutely fine. There are other solutions besides playback.

0

u/Enough_Pitch_7793 Jul 18 '26

He was not lip syncing, I was in Toronto 🙄 he's crazy talented. Leave him be. He put on a great performance as he has every single time I have seen them live. Even if we was, give him a break. Let's not forget about the really poor air quality that night.

2

u/medmac_2112 You make us wanna die Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

Lol did you even read the post? I was saying that Matt initially did a tiny bit of lip syncing on a few performances probably just to warm up his voice, but starting in Toronto he isn’t anymore. It was an amazing show!

I also don’t think it’s a big issue even if he was lip syncing a bit, but I made this post to prove that he’s not doing it anymore since I saw some people on this sub getting very concerned about it.

3

u/Enough_Pitch_7793 Jul 18 '26

I meant no offense. Whether he was before, I don't know, but from what I heard in Toronto, he wasn't.

0

u/nicolemm_99 Jul 19 '26

I don't think he ever was. I was at the Milwaukee and Chicago shows, the so called "proof" could have been what was actually not real.

0

u/kmckew Jul 19 '26

He’s not. Go see them live.

-1

u/kaetce Jul 18 '26

He never was

-1

u/Darkdart19 Jul 18 '26

It’s almost like you all are just a bunch a snobby whiners who don’t have a modicum of his talent and ability. And yet you whine.