So there's this cool new Podcast per http://MewX.info with a 4-person group discussing in-depth 1 Mew song for over an hour on each episode.
Anyway, the episode they shared this week is about this early Mew track "King Christian."
Long story as short as possible: When I 1st checked out Mew in 2006, really when I was won over, it was And the Glass Handed Kites and especially Frengers (Frenjers). I then of course checked out their back catalog learning they had a similar history to Fair to Midland or even Kevin Gilbert in that they wrote and recorded and then re-recorded many songs that ended up on Frengers.
But their 1st 2 albums, A Triumph of Man (1997) and Half the World is Watching (2000)
I think i downloaded along with a boatload of demos, unreleased tracks, etc per their fansite "The Evil Office"
I eventually picked up the Remastered-with-Bonus-Tracks-versions of both of those CDs which may now be kind of hard to come by (I don't regularly check Ebay and Amazon Marketplace for that stuff, but I just recall seeing somewhere they were either really spendy to import, etc, which I likely did back around 2008, 2009).
Anyway, so I listened to both of these versions of "King Christian" just a bit ago.
The 1st/longer one, holy shit that song is catchy! I don't recall being grabbed by it back in the mid 2000's. It says 1998 there on the video though, which makes me wonder if it was a demo or extra on A Triumph of Man, but just looking at the track list(s) for that album, it's not on there.
So this must have been unreleased and then showed up on Half the World.
Now the 2nd video is a shorter track and video. It's similar with a similar chorus, but it doesn't have that 50/early 60's Power-Pop element like the 1st/long version.
And Mew I guess played the 2nd version live a few months ago, which I've never seen that or any of those early tunes live sadly.
The other odd thing, my wife actually likes the 1st/longer/power-poppy version, lol.
I think of some of the following tracks:
King's X - American Cheese, Mississippi Moon
Genesis - Misunderstanding
Kevin Gilbert - Finally Over You
Kimbra - Cameo Lover
Now I highly question she'll care for many if any other Mew tracks, but 1 is more than she did before.
For me, I probably need to revisit those remastered versions of Triumph of Man and Half the World is Watching, although I recall like Fair to Midland, many of the versions of those songs I found inferior. However, I just checked out the Half the World version of 156 and some of that is pretty sweet. Also "Am I Wry? No" has a cool synth part about 3:20 in that is not on the Frengers version.
