Knights of Cydonia is a song by English rock band Muse and is the closing track on the English release of their 2006 album Black Holes & Revelations. The radio edit version was first aired on KROQ radio on 6 June 2006, and released to other radio stations in the United States on 12 June 2006. The song was released as the third single from Black Holes and Revelations in the UK on 27 November 2006, debuting at #10 in the UK Singles Chart (see 2006 in British music). The song was described by BBC Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac on 27 October 2006 as ‘six minutes and one second of pure genius’. In 2007, Eve of Summer recorded a remix.
The first live performance of Knights of Cydonia took place at a BBC Radio 1 event, One Big Weekend, held at Camperdown Park in Dundee on 2006-05-13. Also performed at this event were "Supermassive Black Hole" and "Starlight", the first two singles from Black Holes and Revelations. Live performances of "Knights of Cydonia" feature Bellamy's intro falsetto much more loudly and clearly than its studio counterpart. Recent live performances have featured Bellamy playing an extra guitar part during the solo at the end of song, as well as the coda of "Space Dementia" played as a finale.
The song is also featured in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock as a primary track. It was also used in Heroes Unmasked, the complementary show to the sci-fi series Heroes, where the characters were shown in time to the chorus. The song is also used in commercials advertising the 300 DVD release.
On 26 January, 2008, "Knights of Cydonia" was announced as #1 in Australia's 2007 Triple J Hottest 100, the largest annual music poll in the world.
