Muse Albums in Order: All 10 Studio Albums, from Three Credits to Seventy-Two

The Muse albums in order run from Showbiz in 1999 to The Wow! Signal in 2026, ten studio albums across twenty-seven years. The line-up never changed during that time, so what moves on my map is not the band but the size of the cast behind them.

Matthew Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme and Dominic Howard are credited on all ten, with no one replaced and no one added. Three credited musicians on the first album, seventy-two on the sixth, eleven on the ninth. That swing is the whole story of the print.

It also throws up the oddest credits I have transcribed for any map. One person is credited with crushing antique items. Another is credited with football hooligan noises.

Muse Albums in Order, with the Number of Credited Musicians on Each

This is the count I worked from, taken album by album from the credits rather than from any summary of the band's history.

Album	Year	Credited musicians
Showbiz	1999	3
Origin of Symmetry	2001	7
Absolution	2003	6
Black Holes and Revelations	2006	10
The Resistance	2009	9
The 2nd Law	2012	72
Drones	2015	28
Simulation Theory	2018	7
Will of the People	2022	11
The Wow! Signal	2026	15

Showbiz in 1999 Credits Three People and Nothing Else

Showbiz lists exactly three musicians. No strings, no session players, nobody from outside the band at all. It is the only Muse album where that is true.

Three people do not mean three instruments, though. On Showbiz alone, Bellamy is credited with Mellotron on tracks 2, 7 and 12, Wurlitzer electric piano on 3 and 12, Hammond organ on 4, 7 and 10, and harmonium on track 10.

Wolstenholme plays double bass on tracks 1 and 4, plus something the credits call "slap nylon bass" on track 6. Howard is credited with "radio noise" on track 2. Three names, and the instrument list already runs long.

Four String Players Join on Origin of Symmetry

Origin of Symmetry in 2001 takes the count to seven, and the four new names are a string quartet: Jacqueline Norrie and Sara Herbert on violin, Clare Finnimore on viola and Caroline Lavelle on cello. Bellamy adds a pipe organ on track 11 and a megaphone on track 10.

Absolution in 2003 brings in Paul Reeve, who produces and sings backing vocals on "Blackout" and "Butterflies and Hurricanes", plus Audrey Riley on string arrangements. Riley returns for Black Holes and Revelations in 2006, this time as arranger and conductor.

Her name also appears in someone else's credit for The Resistance in 2009, where the Edodea Ensemble is listed as conducted by Riley and led by concertmaster Edoardo de Angelis. De Angelis has his own line, having played first violin on "Take a Bow", "City of Delusion", "Hoodoo" and "Knights of Cydonia" three years earlier, and he returns again on Drones.

Seventy-Two Credited Musicians on The 2nd Law

The 2nd Law in 2012 is the outlier of the whole sheet. Ten credited musicians on Black Holes and Revelations, nine on The Resistance, and then seventy-two.

The jump is an orchestra and a choir listed player by player rather than as an ensemble. Alyssa Park is first violinist, Andrew Duckles principal viola and Steve Richards principal cello, with David Campbell down as conductor and additional orchestral arrangements.

The brass is named individually, too. Wayne Bergeron takes the trumpet solo on track 1, Tom Saviano plays tenor saxophone, and Donald Markese plays baritone saxophone, and behind them sit dozens of session vocalists, including Oren Waters, Bobbi Page, Edie Lehmann Boddicker and Antonio Sol.

Two of my favourite lines on the print live on this album. Katie Razzall is credited with spoken words on tracks 12 and 13, and Wolstenholme takes lead vocals on tracks 10 and 11 while also playing a Misa Kitara on track 2.

Twenty-One String Players and Three Speaking Voices on Drones

Drones in 2015 is the second-busiest station at twenty-eight, and almost all of it is one Italian string section, named player by player. Twelve violins, including de Angelis as concertmaster, three violas, four cellos and two contrabasses, with names like Michelle Torresetti, Martina Rudic and Massimo Clavenna, each getting a branch line of their own.

Three of the twenty-eight never play a note. Will Leon Thompson is credited as the drill sergeant and Michael Shiloah as the recruit in "[Drill Sergeant]" and "Psycho", and John F. Kennedy is credited for recorded dialogue from his April 1961 speech on secret societies.

Alessandro Cortini supplies modular synthesizers, and that is the whole album. A twenty-one-piece string section, a synth player, three voices and the band.

Tom Kirk Crushed Antique Items on "Exo-Politics" and Kept Coming Back

Tom Kirk is the most persistent guest on the sheet, and he almost never touches a conventional instrument. On Black Holes and Revelations in 2006, he is credited with antique items crushed on "Exo-Politics".

Three years later, on The Resistance, he shares a credit for handclaps and football hooligan noises on "Uprising" with the engineer Adrian Bushby and Paul Reeve. On The 2nd Law, he supplies additional chanting on track 5, and on The Wow! Signal in 2026, he finally receives a straight percussion credit, twenty years after the antiques.

Worth saying here, since Bushby is an engineer: producing or engineering a Muse record earns nobody a line on this map. The credits have to show the person playing or singing something. Rich Costey and Robert John "Mutt" Lange have both produced for Muse, and neither appears anywhere on the print, while Bushby does, entirely because of the handclaps.

Mike Elizondo and Shellback clear the same bar on Simulation Theory in 2018. Both are credited as producer and as keyboard and programmer, Elizondo on track 10 and Shellback on track 8.

The single-purpose credits are the ones that make people lean into the print, so here are the best of them together.

Credited name	What the credit actually says	Album
Spectrasonic's Symphony of Voices	Vocal samples on "Stockholm Syndrome" and "Endlessly"	Absolution (2003)
Tom Kirk	Antique items crushed on "Exo-Politics"	Black Holes and Revelations (2006)
Adrian Bushby	Engineering, plus handclaps and football hooligan noises on "Uprising"	The Resistance (2009)
Enrico Gabrielli	Bass clarinet on "I Belong to You"	The Resistance (2009)
Katie Razzall	Spoken words on tracks 12 and 13	The 2nd Law (2012)
John F. Kennedy	Recorded dialogue from his April 1961 secret societies speech	Drones (2015)
Tove Lo	Additional vocals on track 8	Simulation Theory (2018)
Ellie Goulding	Vocals on track 9	The Wow! Signal (2026)

Eight Family Members on Will of the People, a Full Chorus on The Wow! Signal

Will of the People in 2022 has eleven credited names, and eight of them are family members. Bing Bellamy and Elle Bellamy sit alongside Caris, Ernie, Buster and Teddi Wolstenholme, plus Tabitha and Indiana Wolstenholme Tolhurst.

No orchestra, no choir, no outside producer, just the band and their households. Coming ten years after the seventy-two names of The 2nd Law, it reads like a deliberate correction.

The Wow! Signal in 2026 swings back the other way at fifteen. The Crouch End Festival Chorus sings on tracks 1 to 3 and 10; the London Metropolitan Orchestra plays strings on the same four tracks; Dan Lancaster covers programming and backing vocals across six tracks; and Ellie Goulding sings on track 9.

Choosing a Size, and When the A1 Is Worth It

Every size is landscape, printed Giclée on 230gsm textured matte fine art paper, archival and acid-free. A3, A2 and A1 are all sold unframed, and A2 and A1 are also sold in a black wood frame.

A3 is the entry size at £35 unframed, and it carries the three unbroken band lines and all ten album stations. A2 is 594 x 420 mm and starts at £45. It suits a hallway, a landing or a small studio wall.

A1 is 841 x 594 mm and starts at £65. It is what I recommend when the recipient will genuinely read the thing, because the 2012 column alone carries seventy-two names, and the Drones string section runs to twenty-one more. As a gift, A2 suits the fan who loves the family angle of Will of the People, and A1 suits the one who bought the deluxe editions and knows what a Misa Kitara is.

There are also three inch formats, 16x12, 24x18 and 36x24. They are separate formats in their own right rather than conversions of the A sizes.

Related Music Maps

If you are buying for someone whose shelf runs to British bands with orchestral appetites, the Queen discography tube map is the closest relative on the site. The Radiohead discography tube map suits the same listener coming at it from the other direction.

Anyone still weighing it up can look through every band I have mapped so far in the Music Maps collection.

Questions I Get Asked About the Muse Map

How many albums are on the Muse map?

Ten studio albums, from Showbiz in 1999 through to The Wow! Signal in 2026.

If the line-up never changed, what is there to look at?

Three lines run unbroken from 1999 to 2026, and what shifts is what each man is credited with. Wolstenholme goes from double bass on Showbiz to lead vocals on two tracks of The 2nd Law.

Is The Wow! Signal on the print?

Yes. The map runs to all ten studio albums, with the Crouch End Festival Chorus, Dan Lancaster, and Ellie Goulding all included on the 2026 station.

What is not on the map?

The map covers only the studio albums, so live albums, compilations and EPs are left off. Producers and engineers are left off too, unless the credits also show them playing or singing something.

Do the orchestras and choirs get their own lines?

Named ensembles get one line each, so Around Art, the Edodea Ensemble, the Crouch End Festival Chorus and the London Metropolitan Orchestra appear once apiece. The 2nd Law and Drones are the exceptions, because their credits name every player individually and I follow the credits.

Is John F. Kennedy really credited on Drones?

He is. Drones credits recorded dialogue from his April 1961 speech on secret societies, alongside Will Leon Thompson as the drill sergeant and Alessandro Cortini on modular synthesizers.