on dance music and unusual choral refrains, alongside gamelan elements played with kitchen utensils. "The Hard One" was partly inspired by Bonnie Tyler's 1983 hit "Total Eclipse of the Heart". The band sampled the piano motif from the song, and "although [they] put it through stuff", they declared it "their cover version"; "We switched the lyrics to the chorus around", Mason told CMJ, "I thought that it was a great song, so we ended up writing a tune around it." Jim Steinman, who wrote and produced "Total Eclipse of the Heart", threatened the band with legal action over using its lyrics, "Once upon a time I was falling in love, now I'm only falling apart", which the band changed slightly so that they became "Once upon a time I was falling apart, now I'm only falling in love", but changed his mind after he heard the song. "The Cow's Wrong" closes the record in a muted fashion. Release and promotion The Beta Band was highly anticipated, with Spin calling it "one of the most anticipated releases in Britain since Oasis' Definitely Maybe". Prior to release, The Beta Band was played before an invite-only industry audience in a studio/bar in Shoreditch, London, which included Noel Gallagher and Verve guitarist Nick McCabe. The band were in attendance, "looking slightly embarrassed, like gate crashers at a party in their own home", according to Craig McLean. Gallagher praised the album when talking to an NME journalist. As the band told Lydia Vanderloo of CMJ New Music Monthly, the band did not enjoy promoting the album. The Beta Band was released by Regal Records in the United Kingdom on 21 June 1999, and by Astralwerks in the United States on 29 June 1999. Astralwerks also released "Round the Bend" and "The Cow's Song" as a promotional cassette single in the US. Upon its release, The Beta Band debuted and peaked at number 18 on the UK Albums Chart and stayed on the chart for two weeks. Band denouncement A week prior to the album's release, Steve Mason infamously denounced the album as "fucking awful", adding that "it's definitely the worst record we've ever made and it's probably one of the worst records that'll come out this year." Speaking to NME, he said the album contained "some terrible songs", opining that none of the album's tracks were fully written or developed, dismissing them as "[h]alf-written songs