“Won't Stand Down” by Muse

Muse opened the Will of the People campaign with "Won't Stand Down", released in January 2022 as the first single from their ninth studio album, and it hits like a riot shield to the face: an alternative-metal stomp with Matt Bellamy's guitar chugging, Chris Wolstenholme's bass rumbling underneath and Dominic Howard hammering away as if the kit had insulted him. Bellamy wrote it, sings it and plays keys too, with Wolstenholme on backing vocals; Muse produced it themselves, with extra production from Aleks von Korff, and Dan Lancaster mixed.

The first taste came on Christmas Day 2021, when Bellamy streamed about a minute of it on Instagram from his Tesla, driving on Autopilot while his young son Bing headbanged in the passenger seat. In America it crept up slowly, then became the first Muse song to top Billboard's Mainstream Rock Airplay chart.

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