M2M wanted a better ending. They found a new beginning
After a chance encounter in 2024—two decades after they were unceremoniously dropped by their label—the Norwegian pop duo M2M reunited, hoping to give their story proper closure. They called their 2025 tour “Better Endings.” What they found instead was a “new beginning.”
In Manila, Marit Larsen and Marion Raven took the stage at the Araneta Coliseum to find some 10,000 fans singing along to every word of their songs. “This can’t be it,” they thought.
“We had so much fun together. We just didn’t want it to stop,” Raven tells Lifestyle Inquirer in a Zoom interview. “We have to keep going.”
At first, they were worried if anyone would show up at all. Their streaming figures then—over a million monthly listeners on Spotify—were quite impressive for a music act that hadn’t released anything new since 2002. But would those people go out of their way and actually buy tickets?
Either way, Larsen and Raven agreed that they were doing it for themselves and for fun.
“It was the tour we always wanted. We were already celebrating. And then we got to share these huge rooms with all these people,” Larsen says. “We would be sitting backstage after the shows, thinking we were so close to missing out on all this.”
Magic in contrast
Now, they will get to relive those moments—and then some—as Wilbros Live brings M2M back to the Araneta Coliseum on April 2, 2027, as part of their upcoming “Two” world tour. “It’s crazy,” Larsen says. “We thought it was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but here we are about to do it again.”
The previous tour mostly revolved around the 25th anniversary of “Shades of Purple,” their debut album that gave us the hits “Don’t Say You Love Me,” “The Day You Went Away,” and “Mirror Mirror.”
But with their sophomore album “The Big Room” turning 25 next, some of its songs may just make an appearance in the setlist. Maybe “What You Do About Me”?
Or maybe even brand new songs. If there’s one thing their reunion reignited in them, it’s their curiosity: If they wrote together again, what would that sound like? They’re keeping the new material under wraps for now, but what they can let on is the realization that M2M is a product of contrasts.
“We’re really different—our voices and our songwriting styles,” says Raven, who went the pop rock and alternative route in her solo career, while Larsen explored folk pop. “But when we come together, something magical happens. You get the M2M sound right away. That’s our superpower. And we didn’t fully grasp that when we were young.”
“Pretty Boy” redefined
A moment Larsen and Raven will never forget from their Philippine leg (which included stops in Cebu and Davao) was performing “Pretty Boy” and hearing everyone sing not only the melodies but also every harmony and ad lib—“a blessing” for any songwriter.
“I’m smiling just thinking about it now,” Raven says.
But beyond the connection with the crowd, Raven was also struck by the idea that, over time, a song can take on a different meaning. “Pretty Boy,” for instance, was just that—“a cute song about a teen crush.” Now, as a mother, it’s her three-year-old son she thinks about while performing it.
“I was very emotional singing it onstage,” she says. “I also heard from our younger fans that they remember their mothers singing them to sleep with ‘Pretty Boy’ when they were little. It’s nice to know that it became almost like a lullaby in the Philippines.”
Back to simpler times
As we revisit the music we grew up with, Larsen says we relive who we were when we first heard it—or, in her case, wrote it. “We go back to a time in our lives when, maybe, things seemed uncomplicated and full of hope. We go back to the first time we experienced love and heartbreak,” says Larsen, herself a mother to a six-year-old girl.
“Yeah, back to a time when you were young and had no worries. You didn’t have to work or think about money and other issues,” Raven adds, laughing. “Everything was right in front of you! That feeling made the fans emotional.”
Of course, once in a while, they do find themselves missing the late ‘90s and early 2000s. “Well, parts,” they quip, almost in chorus, giggling and giving each other a nod.
“I also love being a grown-up,” Larsen says. And with growing up comes a different perspective and an understanding that has only strengthened their friendship.
A different understanding
While they both live in Oslo, the two artists—who have been friends since they were five and started making music when they were eight—hadn’t been in contact since their disbandment. When “The Big Room” failed to match its predecessor’s success, their label pulled them as the opening act midway through Jewel’s US tour and sent them home to Norway.
There was no actual falling out between them, though. Their paths simply diverged, and life happened. It wasn’t until a stroke of serendipity in 2024 that they finally bumped into each other at a coffee shop.
They feel like it was meant to be. “We’re back to being really good friends, and we’re talking almost every day. It’s so nice we’re back to that again,” Raven says.
They weren’t sure if they would still like each other after all this time—if they had both changed too much. But it was immediately clear that they “still share common ground.”
“I’m pretty sure we’re more connected now,” Larsen says. “There’s a different kind of understanding.”
