M2M returns to Manila in search of ‘a better ending’
It was “September 22nd, Sunday, 25 after nine.”
But this time, there were no “tears on our faces,” or “letting go of something special”—only nostalgia and excitement as Marion Raven and Marit Larsen of the Norwegian pop duo M2M teased that they were finally reuniting, 22 years after the day they went away.
“It was a series of coincidences,” said Larsen who, together with Raven, surprised fans by putting up an Instagram account with a clip of them playing an acoustic snippet of their hit “The Day You Went Away” on Sept. 22, 2024, at 9:25 a.m. on the dot (Oslo time). Exactly as the lyrics say.
“We noticed that Sept. 22 somehow fell on a Sunday!” Larsen told Lifestyle in a recent Zoom interview.
Before they knew it, the announcement had already gone viral—not only on Instagram, but also on other social media platforms—prompting an outpouring of love from longtime supporters around the world, particularly Southeast Asia, where M2M found great success in the early 2000s.
“The fact that people still connect with our music in such a way, and the fact that we have been part of the soundtrack of people’s lives, even while we were away, is really touching to see,” said Larsen, 41.
“We’re in our 40s now, so we’re not good with TikTok. But after we made the announcement, millions of people watched the video. It was so surprising,” Raven, 40, said.
“Woah! And then you see other people singing our other songs, too—acoustic versions, karaoke versions. It’s different from how things were 25 years ago. Now we’re so much closer to the listeners,” she added.
Life happens
Curiously, while they both live in Oslo, the two singer-songwriters—who became friends when they were 5 and started making music together three years later—had never gotten in touch with each other in the past two decades. Not that they weren’t on good terms.
After they disbanded in 2002, their paths diverged as they pursued solo careers: Larsen went the folk-pop route; Raven, alternative rock. Motherhood eventually followed: Larsen has a 5-year-old girl; Raven’s son, on the other hand, is turning 2 later this year. Life happened, in short.
But in a stroke of serendipity, the two bumped into each other one random April morning last year. After getting a flat tire, Raven decided to kill some time at a coffee shop. “There’s usually no one in that place,” she said. But who walked through the door not too long after? It was Larsen, running late—“as always,” she said laughing—for a meeting, but deciding to drop by for coffee anyway.
“It was destiny,” Raven said.
“It felt like we were meant to have coffee together,” Larsen added.
What started out as a simple, chance catch-up turned into a series of conversations, each succeeding one longer than the last. And the prospect of going on tour together inevitably popped up. “While we achieved so much as a duo, we never really got to do a full concert tour. We have been dreaming about this since we met,” Larsen said.
But there was a big question mark: Will there be a demand? They checked their streaming statistics on Spotify—over a million monthly listeners. Quite impressive for an act that hasn’t put out anything new in the last 20 years. But will the fans actually put money where their mouths are and purchase tickets?
Still popular
As it turned out, the real question wasn’t whether or not people would buy tickets—it was how long before they buy them all. Twenty minutes was all it took, reportedly, to sell out the May 1 concert at the Araneta Coliseum. Due to overwhelming demand, the local promoter, Wilbros Live, added another show on May 2. But that one’s already sold-out, too.
So if you want to catch M2M live onstage, you will have to make a trip to the SMX Convention Center in Davao on May 3, or the Waterfront Hotel in Cebu City on May 4. Tickets are available on SM Tickets.
How does it feel to get such an enthusiastic reception?
“Just you asking about it gives me goosebumps because it has been so amazing. Obviously, you never really know if people still like us,” pointed out Raven, whose last visit to the Philippines was in 2005, to promote her debut solo album, “Here I Am.”
Filipino fans have also started gathering online and creating social media groups, where they share old M2M records, memorabilia, and photos from the duo’s mini-show and autograph signing session at the SM Megamall in April 2000.
“That was one of our biggest memories as M2M, signing autographs at the mall and 10,000 people showing up. It was crazy. When we were leaving, people started running after us. It was as if the building was shaking. People were chasing our car on the highway. We felt like we were The Beatles. Oh, wait, let’s use a younger example—we felt like Justin Bieber,” Raven said, laughing.
Resonant lyrics
The two have been neck-deep in rehearsals since last year. After what must have felt like a lifetime of not playing their songs, you would think they would be a little rusty in their first session. But the moment they started to strum their guitars and open their mouths, the lyrics, melodies all came rushing back. “They have been stuck in me forever… like muscle memory,” Raven said.
While most of the songs were about navigating teen love and heartache, and about not wanting to get kissed in the movie theater, they still surprisingly resonate with them—but perhaps within the context of the lives they lead now.
“I was 15 when we wrote ‘Pretty Boy,’ which is about, well, a boy. But now I think about my son when I sing it,” Raven said.
“We wrote those songs from a very honest place, and it has been nice revisiting who we were back then. It also made us realize how good we actually were!” Larsen said. “We have written maybe hundreds of songs since, but there was just something so pure about our earlier work. The experiences were raw. We wanted to prove our worth as songwriters.”
Acknowledged feelings
The series of shows, which will also bring Raven and Larsen to Jakarta, Bangkok, and Singapore, is called “The Better Endings Tour”—an acknowledgment of feelings left unarticulated and the lack of agency they had over their unexpected breakup.
Their debut album, “Shades of Purple,” sold over 1.5 million units and spawned multiple hits, like “Pretty Boy,” “Mirror Mirror,” and “Don’t Say You Love Me,” whose popularity was further bolstered by its inclusion in the soundtrack of “Pokémon: The First Movie.”
But when their sophomore album, “The Big Room,” failed to match the success of its predecessor (though it gave us the sassy, harder-edged “Everything”), they were pulled out of singer-songwriter Jewel’s tour as front act. Reeling from the shock of what happened, they returned to Norway and stopped playing, before parting ways altogether.
Did they feel like there were unresolved issues, or that they didn’t have a proper closure? “Oh, yes to all of those,” Raven and Larsen said, echoing each other.
“There’s a need to take back our side of our story now that we’re grownups and calling the shots; now that we’re actually reuniting because of the friendship and the magical musical relationship we have,” said Larsen, adding that they would find themselves either laughing or crying uncontrollably in the weirdest times in the middle of their rehearsals.
“There was just so much unresolved tension. Those years were a whirlwind. It was our first time facing the music industry. It was overwhelming, because we were just a bunch of young songwriters from Norway.”
Despite their short-lived time in the limelight, M2M nonetheless ended up being a touchstone of millennial pop culture in the Philippines. “My childhood!” read most of the comments on the duo’s posts. And in an era when boy bands and teen queens reigned, the guitar-toting Raven and Larsen—with their feathery harmonies, unaffected image, and songwriting skills—gave teen pop a refreshingly different look.
And in reliving those halcyon days in their upcoming concerts, M2M hopes to finally give their story the ending it deserves.
“It still feels so good to play our music, and I can’t wait to perform them live and hear the people sing along,” Raven said.
