Hysteria (Muse song)
2003 single by Muse
"Hysteria" is a song by the English rock band Muse, released on 1 December 2003 as the third single from their third studio album, Absolution (2003). It was produced by Muse and Rich Costey. It features a distorted bassline and lyrics about a soul-consuming obsession.
"Hysteria" reached number 17 on the UK singles chart and number 9 on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart. Its bassline was voted among the greatest of all time by MusicRadar readers and by Guitar World.
Recording
According to the bassist, Chris Wolstenholme, "Hysteria" originated in a jam during a soundcheck in Doncaster, England, with the guitarist, Matt Bellamy, playing the riff in a blues style. Wolstenholme transferred the riff to bass guitar and changed it to a "machine-gun-like" pattern composed entirely of sixteenth notes. He split his signal into three Marshall amps, one clean and two distorted, and blended the results with a synthesiser. Muse processed it using the sound design system Kyma.
Bellamy restructured "Hysteria" after feedback from the producer, Rich Costey.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1767223. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hysteria (Muse song)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.