Omen turned 15! Complete story

On 16 February 2024, Omen celebrates its anniversary: the single’s release on that day 15 years ago marked a new era in The Prodigy’s fortunes, becoming one of the most recognizable and sought-after hits of the band’s career, alongside ‘Breathe’ and ‘Firestarter’. To mark the anniversary of the first single from Invaders Must Die, we tell the full story behind the track and delve into rare first-hand details.

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With over 100 million plays on Spotify alone, ‘Omen’ is a true 2000s hit that hasn’t left the band’s live setlist since 2009. However, it was not originally created in the form familiar to fans, having undergone lots of changes along the way.

Liam for Time Out Dubai: It’s a tune we love. Very anthemic, more melodic than our usual stuff and kind of like ‘Breathe’ [from The Fat Of The Land], with its seething energy. ‘Omen’ is typical of how we worked on this album: we’d do something and then come back to it a few months later.

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Unlike any of the band’s previous work, ‘Omen’ was the closest they had come to a conventional pop song structure: a clear, melodic vocal refrain, a bright, recognisable synth hook and a phat beats – a concise form that kept the focus on the song as a whole, rather than the lyrics or arrangement alone. It was this move that brought The Prodigy the attention they deserved: for the first time in 12 years, the band’s track was a genuine commercial breakthrough again, returning them to the world charts and securing the attention of major media outlets.

Probably due to the fact that the track was in the making for a good two years, at least three different official versions have been released: a conventional ‘breakbeat’ sound on the single – Extended Mix (short-edit of this mix can also be heard in the official music video), an album version with a straight 4/4 drum beat:

Howlett couldn’t decide on the final mix for the album – and eventually the 4/4 beat version made it onto the LP, which was released later, on 23 February.

Liam Howlett for Clash Music: ‘It’s hard to do something that is right for all aspects, live, on the record… I’m totally happy with this one for the record, it’s perfect, but I know that the live versions will be different on some of them. So I expect to tweak them and bring new life to them. The album version of ‘Omen’ is different to the single version – just some of the beats. The groove is the same and I love doing that’.

And third version was also released on album as reprise – probably a tribute to their own tradition of releasing atmospheric tracks like ‘Climbatize’ on their albums to give you a breather between the strong fast bangers.

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Check out our insights behind the ‘2008 Pre-Invaders times: theprodi.gy/live2008

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The Telegraph: At least half their set was drawn from forthcoming album Invaders Must Die, and new numbers such as Omen, World’s on Fire and Warriors Dance have the energised moody tribal bounce of their best-loved material.

By the way, there is a possibility that the decision to release ‘Omen’ as the first single from the forthcoming album came shortly after the live premiere of the track. This conclusion can be drawn from Liam’s words in an interview for Japanese Future Groove magazine. When asked why Omen was released as the album’s lead single, Howlett was unequivocal.

Liam for Future Groove:: ‘We wanted to choose a song that shows we’ve made progress as a single. I think there are three or four songs on this album that could be singles, but when we played ‘Omen’ live…’

Keith for Future Groove:: ‘The reaction was really good’.

Liam for Future Groove:: ‘Omen’ is an anthemic song and I love that about it. This track is a little different from our previous tunes’.

The first promo CDs were released in late 2008 on The Prodigy’s fledgling label, entitled Take Me To The Hospital. Omen’s promo artwork, created by Luke Insect, differed from the final cover and looked much less flashy, with a barely visible faces on a dark background. The tracklisting was also different: the eponymous one-track single featured the 3:19 radio edit (the same used in the video), and the five-track ‘Invaders Must Die’ Album Sampler featured the album version.

According to Wikipedia, the single was officially announced on 9 January 2009 in a special theprodigy.com newsletter and the track had its world radio premiere on 12 January. At 19:00 London time, Liam, Maxim and Keith appeared on BBC Radio 1 for two hours. Hosted by Zane Lowe, the boys played their favourite music, discussed new album releases and chatted about their own fresh tunes and upcoming LP.

Liam Howlett for Zane Lowe: ‘This is Omen coming up. We’ve just played this track on a tour. Went really well, really happy with it, really proud of it! It’s the first proper release of our new album, Invaders Must Die’

Keith Flint for Zane Lowe: ‘Good things come to those who wait! That’s the hottest track in the world right now: The Prodigy, Omen. Maxim and myself on vocals. Just been rocking it on our UK Tour, we know you’ve been lovin that one!’

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Various editions of the single in 2009 included official remixes by Noisia, Chase & Status and Herve.

14 years after its release, in 2023, British grime trio PENGSHUi also unleashed an unexpected remix, which released on the vinyl edition of Invaders Must Die Remixes exclusively for Recordstore Day and digitally on all platforms for the first time on 23 February 2024. With digital release, The Prodigy celebrated the 15th anniversary of ‘Invaders Must Die’ LP, which was released on the same day in 2009.

Pengshui regularly perform this remix live with some vocal parts that aren’t included in the studio version of the remix!

The Prodigy also added this remix to their concert setlist as the finale to their live performance of ‘Omen’.

Within a week of the single’s release, the ‘Invaders Must Die’ LP topped the world charts and returned the band to the success that had eluded them for over a decade…

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Headmasters: SPLIT, SIXSHOT
Additional thanks to: Tim Hutton

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