“Starlight” by Muse

"Starlight" was the second single Muse pulled from Black Holes and Revelations, their fourth album, in 2006, and it's the moment the English trio's space-opera ambitions found a chorus built for a whole arena to sing back. Wedged between "Supermassive Black Hole" and "Knights of Cydonia" in the single run, it's the warm heart of the record rather than its freak show.

Matt Bellamy wrote the words and music, and he's all over it: keyboard chords pounding like a heartbeat, guitar underneath, and that high, yearning voice climbing out over the top. Dominic Howard's drums and percussion march it forward, while Christopher Wolstenholme's bass rolls steady below and his backing vocals swell up behind Bellamy on the chorus.

Rich Costey co-produced it with the band, recorded it with Claudius Mittendorfer and mixed it, and he gives it a gleaming, widescreen polish without sanding off any of the melodrama. It reached 13 on the UK singles chart and climbed to number two on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.