In 2011, Matthew Bellamy was asked to compose a song for the London 2012 Olympics. According to him, the project then "went away," though a song was written regardless. Bellamy and his fellow band members brought the song to Olympic staff, who "said they'd love to use it as the official tune." The track, Bellamy noted, "expresses a sense of conviction and determination to win." "Survival" was played as the athletes entered the stadium and in the period before medal ceremonies; international broadcasters played it while reporting on the Games. In addition, the song was included on the albumLondon 2012 Rock The Games. The song was also premièred live during Muse's live set for the London 2012 closing ceremony. However NBC, the channel that broadcasts the Olympics in the USA, did not broadcast their set.
Release
"Survival" premiered on BBC Radio 1 on 27 June 2012. It was the first single from the band's 2012 album The 2nd Law, released in October. The official music video was released on 4 July 2012. It showed a montage of past Olympic events, including both celebratory and disappointing experiences for certain athletes.
Reception
"Survival" received mixed reviews from fans and critics alike. The Associated Press called the song "a thundering rock anthem". NME columnist Mark Beaumont was perturbed that the band's latest track was "assimilated into something as annoying" as the Olympics. He continued that "'Survival' might be amongst the most ear-scorchingly, arse-burstingly, aneurysm-inducingly brilliant songs in Muse’s canon, but it’ll forever be deemed corny by its association with one long-past sporting event." Adam Boult of The Guardian referred to the track as "a hilarious five-minute onslaught of camp, falling somewhere betweenQueen, Gloria Gaynor and a Monty Python sketch. Swelling strings, battle drums, ludicrous falsetto shrieking and chugga-chugga guitar channelling the Little Engine That Could. It's as insanely overblown as the Olympics themselves." Meanwhile, Jon Holmes of BBC Radio 4'sThe Now Show described it as an "Epically proportioned cacophany of enormous noise" that was like "the sound of an orchestra falling down some stairs" created by "throwing a hand-grenade into a music cupboard and recording the results". He depicted the drumkit as like "the noise of a rhino knocking a wall down" and memorably stated that "This is the song I want to hear when the world ends".
Analysis
The vocal melody of the opening verses, in the context of its repeated harmonic progression, has been shown to lead the other notes in the chords, which well matches the lyrics' first-person account of victory.
