I want you to just mentally transport yourself
back for a second to the year 2000. Oh, boy.
Right? Yeah. Y2K has just passed. The world didn't
end. And we are sitting on this really fascinating
precipice in the music industry. Yeah. It was
a weird transition period. Totally. Because Napster
is bubbling up. Digital piracy is starting to
scare the suits. And yet the era of the physical
CD is arguably right at its absolute peak just
before the decline. It was a time when the physical
object, you know, the plastic disc, the booklet,
the artwork, that was still the primary way we
experienced music. It wasn't just a file on a
phone. Exactly. You held it. You studied the
liner notes. And in Denmark, amidst this whole
shifting landscape, an alternative rock band
called Mew decides to basically double down on
that physical format. They really did. They aren't
just releasing an album. they're constructing
a puzzle box. That is the perfect way to describe
it. So today, we are doing a deep dive into Mew's
Pivotal Year 2000 release, an album called Half
the World is Watching Me. This is such a great
topic to dig into because this album is essentially
a missing link in rock history. It really is.
Most people, if they know Mew, they know them
for their 2003 international breakout. Frengers.
Right, Frengers. But half the world is watching
me is the laboratory where Frengers was actually
built. It's the prototype. Exactly. But what
makes this deep dive so compelling for you and
me to talk about today is that we aren't just
talking about the songs. No, the songs are almost
just half the story. Right. We're talking about
an artifact that had actual secrets, literal
hidden audio that you had to know how to unlock.
Shifting track lists. Shifting track lists, yeah.
And a production history that involves one of
the most unlikely pairings in music history.
It's a story about a band taking absolute control
of their destiny and their business. So let's
set the scene. May 4th, 2000. Mew releases this
album. But they don't do it the easy way. Not
at all. They don't sign a standard deal for this
one. They go completely DIY. That is the first
major point we have to look at here. They released
it on their own label, which, by the way, had
arguably the best name in the history of record
labels. Oh, it's so good. Evil Office. Evil Office.
I mean, it sounds like a frantic punk band, not
an indie label. It does. But it signaled something
very serious for them. They had released their
debut album, A Triumph for Man, in 1997. Right.
And that was on a standard label called Xlibris.
But for this sophomore effort, they wanted total
control. Which makes sense. So they recorded
it between February and August of 1999, and they
just put it out themselves. That is a massive
gamble. Huge. You're a young band. You're trying
to break through. And instead of leveraging a
label's marketing budget and distribution, you're
doing it on your own. It was a high wire act.
And because of that independence, the scarcity
was very real. Let's talk about the numbers,
because they are shocking. They only pressed
about 5 ,000 copies of the original release.
5 ,000. That is nothing. In the year 2000, that
was microscopic. If you managed to buy one of
those original discs, you were holding a genuinely
rare artifact. You really were. But here's the
thing. Usually when a band goes DIY with a tiny
print run like that, you expect the production
quality to be a little... Crunchy. Crunchy, yeah.
Lo -fi. Garage band energy. Right. You expect
it to sound like it was recorded in a basement
with egg cartons taped to the walls. Exactly.
But half the world is watching me sounded massive.
It sounded symphonic. And that is entirely because
of who they hired to help them. OK, yes. Yeah.
This is the part of the source material that
made me do a double take. It's the best part.
I'm looking at the liner notes. Produced by Mew,
yes. That makes sense. Yeah. But co -produced
and engineered by Fleming Rasmussen. And Morton
Sedenius, too. But Rasmussen is the headline
there. Does that name ring a bell? it rings a
very loud, very distorted bell. Fleming Rasmussen
is the guy who engineered Metallica's Ride the
Lightning. And produced Master of Puppets. And
justice for all. Precisely. So just so I have
this straight for the listener, you have Mew.
A band known for Jonas Beer's really high -pitched,
angelic, almost choir boy vocals. Very dreamy.
Dreamy synthesizers. And they hired the guy famous
for capturing the crunchiest, most aggressive
thrash metal guitars in history. It sounds like
a total mismatch, doesn't it? Like mixing oil
and water. It does. But this is the absolute
key to understanding Muse sound. How so? Well,
think about it. If they had hired a typical indie
pop producer, the album might have just flowed
it away into the clouds. It would have been too
soft. Way too soft. Too ethereal. Rasmussen brought
that metal discipline to the rhythm section.
Okay, that makes a lot of sense actually. Right.
If you listen to Silas Utke -Grey Juergensen's
drumming on this album, it's not standard indie
pop drumming. It's punchy. It's very precise.
It has real weight to it. And the same goes for
Johann Vollert on bass. It's driving. And Bo
Madsen's guitars aren't just strumming. They
have these really sharp angles and edges. So
Rasmussen essentially anchored the dreaminess
with a heavy metal skeleton. That is the perfect
way to put it. Too much sugar, not enough salt
otherwise. Exactly. And that heavy skeleton allowed
the band to layer all these other crazy textures
on top without the songs collapsing under their
own weight. Because the instrumentation is wild.
It's not just guitar, bass, and drums. Not at
all. You look at the credits, and you've got
Tim Christensen credited on the mellotron. The
mellotron is crucial. It gives you that vintage,
slightly eerie, orchestral wash. It sounds like
a haunted flute section. Yes. And then you've
got actual horns. Mads Heine and Casper Tranberg
are on there. You've got close Nielsen on synthesizers?
It's a very dense, heavily textured landscape.
And that texture really served the songwriting,
which we see in how they rolled it out. Let's
talk about the singles. They released King Christian
as a single first in February of 2000, so before
the album even dropped. Setting the stage. Then
her voice is beyond her years in June. Which,
by the way, is a title that feels like a short
story all on its own. It implies a duet, or at
least a dialogue. which really fits the complexity
of the song itself. And Steena Nordenstam is
actually on that track providing those duet vocals.
Right. And then finally Micah in January of 2001.
So they had a solid rollout. But despite these
singles, I think we both know there is one song
on this album that defines the entire project.
It is the absolute elephant in the room. The
closer. Comforting sounds. Comforting sounds.
It's nearly nine minutes long. 8 minutes and
44 seconds to be exact. Placing a 9 minute song
as the final track on a sophomore indie release
is a massive statement of intent. It says we
aren't just trying to get on the radio, we are
composing. I love that track so much because
it ignores all the rules of pop music. completely
ignores them. It doesn't really have a chorus
in the traditional sense. It just builds. It
starts with this very quiet, lonely piano and
vocal. Just Jonas. And by the end, it's this
absolute wall of sound. It's a crescendo that
lasts for, what, five minutes? Easily five minutes
of just building and layering. It's a structural
pillar for the whole album. But here is where
we get into the puzzle box aspect you mentioned
earlier. Yes. The best part. Because the album
ends with comforting sounds. The listener sits
there. totally emotionally drained from this
nine -minute epic. The CD player stops. Or does
it? Well, on a normal CD player, yes, it stops.
But Mew did something with the physical format
of that original Evil Office release that is
almost lost to history now. This is such a great
piece of music trivia. It's my favorite part
of this entire deep dive, the hidden experience.
So if you look at the track list, there is a
song called Ending. Which is a very fitting name
for a song. It is, but if you looked at the back
of the physical CD case, ending is listed. But
good luck finding it by just pressing the next
button on your stereo. Because it wasn't at the
end. No. It was at the beginning. Correct, but
not as track one. No, that would be too simple.
It was hidden in the pre -gap. We need to explain
this because I feel like anyone under a certain
age is going to be very confused about what a
pre -gap even is. Oh, absolutely. What is a pre
-gap? Okay, so... The red book standard for CDs.
The technical rule book that defines how a CD
works. It says that track one starts at time
zero. Zero minutes, zero seconds. Makes sense.
But the laser in the CD player actually starts
reading the disc a little bit before that to
get up to speed. Just a buffer. Right. And usually
that space is just two seconds of pure silence.
But technically, you can encode audio there.
So to hear this song ending. What did you physically
have to do? You had to put the CD in, wait for
it to spin up, and start playing track one, which
is, am I right? No. And then as soon as it started,
you had to physically hold down the rewind button
on your player. You had to rewind past zero.
Exactly. Which feels wrong. You watched the digital
counter go negative, negative zero zero five,
negative zero ten. And you had to go back about
two minutes? Yep. It feels like breaking the
machine. I remember doing this with a different
album back in the day, I think at Queens of the
Stone Age record, and it felt illicit. Yes. Like
you were hacking the hardware. It made the listener
an active participant. You had to physically
work to uncover the music. And there was a visual
clue for this too, right? There was. A purple
circle printed on the physical disc itself indicated
where that hidden track lived. But the coolest
part isn't just that it was hidden. It's why
it was hidden. This wasn't just a throwaway demo
they forgot about. Right, it connected to the
very concept of the album. This is the stroke
of genius. The track is called Ending. But it's
technically before the beginning. Because it's
negative time. Exactly. And if you listen to
the final 11 seconds of ending, they are completely
identical to the first 11 seconds of track one,
Am I Right? No. So if you could theoretically
play them back to back. It creates a perfect
seamless loop. The ending feeds directly into
the beginning. The album becomes a moebius strip.
It suggests that the music never actually stops.
It just cycles forever. That is so conceptually
heavy for a debut indie rock release. Well, a
sophomore release, but their first major statement
on their own label. It challenges the linear
way we consume stuff. Yeah. We want to start
a middle and an end. Mew gave us a circle. And
that is something you simply cannot replicate
on modern platforms. No, you really can't. You
can't rewind past zero on a streaming service.
That specific artistic statement is forever tied
to the physical object of the CD. It's a tragedy
that we lost that interactive element. It is
a bit sad. But speaking of losing things... The
album didn't stay in this puzzle box form for
long, did it? No, it didn't. As we said, they
only made 5 ,000 of those original Evil Office
copies. And the band was gaining traction. A
lot of traction. They needed to get the music
to more people, so they reissued the album. And
when they did, they made some pretty major changes.
Very significant changes. The first reissue changed
the visual presentation slightly. The cover art.
Right, the cover art changed. The text got this
white border around it. The physical disc itself
changed from from being white to just being standard
reflective silver. But the biggest change was
the audio. The track list. They removed the hidden
track ending. Oh, that hurts. They broke the
loop. They completely broke the loop. Why would
they do that? Well, to be fair to them, the pre
-gap trick was causing actual technical issues
with some CD players. Oh, really? Yeah, it was
a bit glitchy. Some older players just couldn't
handle reading backwards into the negative index.
It would freeze the machine. So the hack was
a little too hacky. Exactly. So in exchange for
losing ending, they gave the fans a trade -off.
Two new tracks. She Came Home for Christmas.
And I Should Have Been a Sincy for You. Now,
She Came Home for Christmas is a massive, massive
song for them. It is one of their most beloved
tracks. It became an absolute staple of their
live shows. So listeners got a pretty good trade
-off. You lost the secret conceptual loop. But
you gained two very strong, very distinct songs.
It made the album feel a bit more standard, a
bit more like a commercial product. It was growing
up. It was getting ready for the international
stage. Exactly. And that brings us to the second
major reissue. Fast forward to 2007. OK, so by
2007, You is huge. A Fringer's been out for four
years. And the follow -up to that and the Glass
-Handed Kites is out. They are an established
global act. So why go back to this year 2000
album? Purely for the collectors and the hardcore
fans, this reissue dropped on September 4th,
2007, and it included a whole bonus disc. Nine
extra tracks. And if you are a fan of the creative
process, getting to peek behind the curtain,
this disc is an absolute gold mine. I was looking
at the track list for this bonus disc, and it
is fascinating. First off, you have a studio
outtake of a song called Half the World is Watching
Me. Which is deeply ironic, right? Because the
title track wasn't actually on the original album.
It's the classic Led Zeppelin Houses of the Holy
Move. The song isn't on the album of the same
name. Exactly. But the real gems on this bonus
disc are the demos. They show the band in a really
raw state. You have a Cubase demo of 156, a demo
called Quietly. But my absolute favorite detail
on this entire deep dive, out of everything we've
talked about. I think I know which one you mean.
It's one of the demo titles. I had to read it
three times to make sure my notes weren't wrong.
The demo for comforting sounds. Comforting sounds
in parentheses. Do I look Puerto Rican? Yes.
What is happening there? I have no idea. You
have this deeply emotional eight minute epic
about comfort and longing and human connection.
And the working title in the studio is... Do
I look Puerto Rican? It's hilarious, but it really
humanizes them. It does. We tend to project this
very specific image onto art rock bands. We think
of them as these very serious brooding figures.
Oh, you're sitting in dark rooms contemplating
deep philosophy. Wearing black turtlenecks and
staring out of rainy windows in Copenhagen. Exactly.
But this title proves they are just four guys
in a studio. Probably totally sleep deprived.
Making inside jokes. Naming files whatever weird
thing pops into their heads just to make each
other laugh. It's a great reminder that the ultimate
masterpiece usually starts as a very messy, stupidly
named file on a computer. It creates such a nice
contrast. You have the super high art of the
hidden pre -gap loop and the super lowbrow humor
of the demo titles. It's all part of the band's
DNA. So looking at the big picture of all these
sources, how does this album fit into their overall
legacy? You called it a laboratory earlier. I
think that's honestly the best way to view it.
Let's compare the track lists. If you look at
the track list of Half the World is Watching
Me, and then look at the track list of Fringers,
which came out three years later on a major label.
There is a huge amount of overlap. Massive overlap.
Am I wry? No. 156. Comforting sounds. She came
home for Christmas. These are the heavy hitters.
The songs that made their career. Right. Fringers
is often considered their debut by the international
market because it was their first global release.
But it was essentially a polished, re -recorded
best of album from their first two indie records.
Half the world is watching me is where those
iconic songs were actually forged. So if you're
a Mew fan, This album is the Rosetta Stone. It
truly is. It's the proof of concept. They proved
to themselves and to the industry that they could
write arena -sized anthems on a DIY budget. They
proved they could balance the crunch metal influence
of Fleming Rasmussen with their own dream pop
melodies. And the critics in Denmark noticed
right away. Gaffa magazine gave it a prominent
rating, right? They did. And Gaffa is the big
music publication in Denmark. It's like their
Rolling Stone. So the fact that they were heavily
covering and rating a self -released album on
an indie label called Evil Office? It shows that
Mew wasn't being ignored. They were already local
heroes before they ever became global stars.
And clearly the demand was there. Otherwise,
they wouldn't have needed to reissue it not once,
but twice. Absolutely. It went from a 5 ,000
copy local rarity to a foundational text of Scandinavian
rock music. I want to go back to the idea of
the mission we started with today. We really
wanted to see how this album became this complex,
evolving artifact. And we definitely saw the
evolution. But I think we've also found that
its story is almost a tragedy of technology.
How do you mean? Well, the music survives. We
can go listen to comforting sounds right now
on any streaming platform. Sure. But the object
itself, the puzzle box, it's broken now. Ah,
I see what you mean. We can't do the real wine
trick. We can't experience the loop naturally
the way it was designed. It raises a really interesting
philosophical question about what an album actually
is. Right. Is it just the audio aids hitting
your ear? Or is it the ritual of playing it?
You clearly thought the ritual mattered. They
designed the silence. They designed the gap.
They forced you to physically interact with the
machine. And in the age of streaming, we have
removed all of that friction. Everything is instant.
Everything is just one tap away. But in removing
the friction, we've also removed the mystery.
There are no secret rooms in Spotify. There's
no negative zero on Apple Music. It's a trade
-off. Access versus discovery. We have access
to basically all recorded music, but we discover
less of it on our own. We don't have to work
for it. No, we just get fed algorithms. So here
is my challenge to you, the listener, based on
everything we dug into today. Oh, I like a challenge.
If you can, go find a way to listen to the end
of the song ending and the beginning of Am I
Rye? No back -to -back. Even if you have to cue
it up manually on a playlist and try to crossfade
it? Recreate the loop for yourself. Recreate
the loop. Try to hear that circle exactly the
way the band intended it. back in the year 2000.
I promise you, it completely changes the way
you hear the beginning of the album. It definitely
does. It makes the start feel like a continuation
of a thought rather than an introduction. And
keep an eye out in your local record stores or
thrift shops for those physical copies. If you
are flipping through the CDs and you see a white
disc with a purple circle on it, you know you've
struck gold. Do not let that one go. Buy it.
immediately. Absolutely. Thanks for unpacking
this amazing time capsule with us. It's been
an absolute blast exploring the Evil Office.
Lots of fun. We will catch you on the next Deep
Dive.