My 16 year old daughter is madly in love with a 32 year old English rock musician. Should I be concerned?

If she's going to be crazy about a musician, I guess it's okay to be infatuated with Matthew Bellamy of Muse.

Oh she is most definitely in love.  Her brother says she's crossed the line into creepystalker mode.  She knows his birth date, where he was born, where he lived when he formed the band and what age he and his bandmates were at that time.  She knows when his girlfriend (you might have heard of her - Kate Hudson?) will be having their baby.  She knows where the band's studio is (not exactly but general vicinity!) and she has researched their discography thoroughly, right down to live records and DVDs. So far, she owns three studio albums plus one live CD/DVD package.  She can connect a Muse reference from any conversation.  Every time she's on FB she posts a Muse lyric.  She has racked up hours and ridiculous hours on YouTube watching their videos and then when she'd seen all the music videos she started watching interviews, and now she has memorized her favourite musician's accent, facial ticks, and his funny laugh.  She has tons of pictures in her file on the computer.  (I don't know where she got that habit from ahemjohnnydepp.)

She loves him.  She adores his habit of wearing shiny suits on stage. She thinks it's awesome that he intends for Muse to be the first rock band to play in outer space. She loves his crazy fast talking, she loves his singing voice, she loves his pretty blue eyes.  Everything the guy does, in her opinion, is either funny, cute, or amazing.

It's pretty healthy.  She respects and admires his talent.  She's in awe of him, of the fact he sings, plays piano, plays guitar - quite shreddingly and energetically - as well as writes and produces.  He also fiddles with modifying his guitars and has had a hand in designing some freaky new guitars. Her guy Matt is genuinely talented.

(Yep, that does appear to be a keytar.  The guy's got guts.)

It's serious.  She is even more in love with him than she was with her first big infatuation....

Eicca Toppinen of Apocalytica.  I didn't think it was possible for a girl to be more obsessed than she was with this guy, but she's gone on to a whole other range with Matt Bellamy. Eicca is still a hero, and always will be because she is very loyal.  But Bellamy's her guy now.

I do think the kid has good taste.


And I can agree about the pretty blue eyes.

I'm partly to blame for this obsession.  I've liked this band for years and have a very clear memory of turning right in the subdivision on my way to our house when this intense haunting and rock-thumping song played on the radio.  You know how every now and then you hear a song that speeds your heart rate, stands your hairs on end and covers you in goosebumps?  And it's good?  That's what "Time Is Running Out" did to me. Other singles always got turned up when we heard them.  When That Twilight Movie came out, and I took Annyong and her friend to the theatre to see it, us three and a whole bunch more screaming girls and their mothers, and like, three uncomfortable looking guys, we were totally squealing when "Supermassive Black Hole" played over the slightly goofy baseball scene.

(Because Muse is also Stephenie Meyer's favourite band... Annyong is all, "I knew that band before the Twi-hards claimed them!!")

So I really dug this band.  Of course, me, I always fall for the bass player with the puppy dog eyes.  That's him, on the left.  Swoon.

Of course that cute little drummer on the right is adorable too eh?  Darn Englishmen.  

Anyways.  Why I'm to blame: This past Christmas I picked out a Muse CD for her.  "Black Holes And Revelations." It's got some heavy singles on it.  I hadn't heard the whole album before, and when we listened to it in its entirety, we were all impressed.  Heavily impressed.  And of course that set up the whole THING.

It all went CRAAAAAZY after that.  You know nobody does crazy like a 16 year old girl, especially when that girl is half ME.  She never had a chance.  Falling in love with musicians comes naturally to her.  Poor kid. 

Muse really are an incredible band.  They're not nearly as well known here in North America as over in Europe.  (Hey, fellow North Americans - what the heck is generally wrong with us over here???!!!)

No really, are these guys too weird for us?  They're just perfectly weird enough in our house...

Look, even Jethro is a fan of this band.  And he doesn't give it away easily.

After that, the Girl HAD TO HAVE the most recent record, "The Resistance."  I bought it but we made a deal that she'd shovel out the open shed in the barn to work it off.  Then she had to have "Absolution" so as a result I have a nice clean barn.  Total win-win.  So far, other than constantly nagging the kid to shut down the YouTube, this little Muse fixation has been okay for me!  Although, from now on she's got to bring her own money with her because I'm running out of barn chores for her to do.

Oh, and she also batted her beautiful eyes at her Daddy, gave him $20 and asked him to pay the other $10 so she could have the live package, "HAARP".

She also has the Resistance songbook.  You should see this sheet music - it's gorgeous.  Seriously, I've never seen music notes looking like art. She asked the webmaster of their site if she could photocopy it and use it as wallpaper; a guy emailed back and figured it would be okay!

She gets frustrated that she struggles to play the music.  I tell her that I doubt Matt Bellamy learned how to play Chopin soon after learning to walk.  I tell her I'm sure Matt Bellamy plays piano and plays guitar every day.  It's called practice.  I tell her if she wants to honour her favourite musician she should practice and play his music well!

I'm just trying to put some positivity into an obsession I sort of kickstarted.

But it could be worse, right?

I mean, he's quite unattainable and quite taken, so it's a totally harmless, and I'd argue even healthy crush.

He's obviously an inspiration.

He's this serious musician, slightly bad-boy as a good rock star should be, but also kinda goofy and funny.

In general, they're just a bunch of lovely young fellas, aren't they?  Absolutely charming.

Sigh.  They'd probably fit right in around here.




Most of all I approve because he's hardworking and talented.  That's the kind of person I want my kids, either of them, to emulate and admire.

Having said that, I got my stinkeye on any of those gangly zit faced punkasses in her music class.  I'm just sayin'.