A-ha

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a-ha is a Norwegian band who were most popular in the UK and the USA during the 1980s, but continued to be globally successful in the 1990s and 2000s. The trio, composed of lead vocalist Morten Harket, guitarist Paul Waaktaar-Savoy (known as Pål Waaktaar until 1994) and keyboardist Magne Furuholmen, formed in 1982 and left Norway for London in order to make a career in the music business. The origin of the name a-ha comes from the title of an early song (The Juicyfruit Song). After checking dictionaries in several languages, they found out that "a-ha" was an international way of expressing recognition, with positive connotations. It was short, easy to say and unusual.

Band members

• Morten Harket - Vocals (1982-94; 1998-present)
• Magne Furuholmen - Keyboards (1982-94; 1998-present)
• Paul Waaktaar-Savoy - Guitars (1982-94; 1998-present)

History

Take On Me & Hunting High and Low

The song "Take On Me" was the first thing Morten Harket heard Magne Furuholmen and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy play. At that time the song was called "Lesson One." After multiple re-recordings and two failed releases, "Take On Me" became a hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1985. The first release of the song in 1984 only sold 300 copies, but after a rework with producer Alan Tarney a year later, it sold 1.5 million copies worldwide in one month. Eventually the single "Take On Me" is estimated to have sold 6 - 7 million copies worldwide; it peaked at #1 in the US and #2 in the UK. Sales were aided in the US by a music video on MTV that mimicked the climactic scene from the Ken Russell film Altered States. The video used a sketchy animation / live action combination called "Rotoscoping" (in which the video is first shot on normal video, then each frame is hand-traced over to give the animated effect) that tells a fantasy thriller story to the song. a-ha was also nominated for Best Video for "Take On Me" at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1986.

The follow-up single to "Take On Me" was "The Sun Always Shines on TV". In the US, the song was only a minor hit, peaking at #20 on the Billboard singles charts, signifying the sharp decline in the band's American popularity in North America. The group would never again have a Billboard Top 40 single in the US. To this day, in America, "Take On Me" is far better remembered than the rest of a-ha's output, and as such, the band is frequently considered a one-hit wonder. In the UK (and much of the rest of the world), however, the story was very different: "The Sun Always Shines on TV" was an even bigger hit among British fans than "Take On Me", peaking all the way at number one.

Unsurprisingly, the 1985 album Hunting High and Low, containing "Take On Me" and "The Sun Always Shines on TV," sold better in the UK than in the US. However, the worldwide critical consensus dismissed the band as bubblegum pop at the time.

As of 2005, Hunting High and Low has sold 8 million copies worldwide.

First phase (1986-1994)

a-ha's second album was Scoundrel Days (1986) and represented a move towards alternative rock as synth pop began to fall out of style. In 1987, they provided the title song for the James Bond film The Living Daylights. Stay on These Roads (1988) received more mixed reviews than the previous albums. In spite of a drastic decline in sales in the next few years, a-ha continued to record two more albums, East of the Sun, West of the Moon (1990) and Memorial Beach (1993).

In the late 80s and early 90s, a-ha were very popular in South America, especially Brazil. They sold out some of the largest stadiums in the world. At the Rock in Rio festival in 1991, a-ha shocked the international entertainment press by gathering a paying audience of 198,000 people at Maracanã Stadium - a world record for paying audiences. George Michael, Prince and Guns N' Roses only managed to gather 60,000 each.

Because of apparent internal conflicts between the band members and conflict with the recordlabel at the time, a-ha split in 1993 and their members started focusing on solo activities, but came together in 1994 to perform for the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. This performance included their song composed for the Winter Paralympics, "Shapes That Go Together".

Solo careers

Paul Waaktaar-Savoy has released 5 albums with his wife Lauren Savoy and their band Savoy. Morten Harket has released three solo albums, among them Wild Seed that sold around 200,000 copies in Norway and 500 000 altogether and is the best-selling a-ha solo project to date. Magne Furuholmen has grown a reputation as a sculpter, painter and has made music for films and television. In 2004 he released his first solo album proper, backed by members of Coldplay, who are big fans of a-ha.

Second phase (1998-present)

After a very well-received performance of "The Sun Always Shines on TV" and a new song, "Summer Moved On", at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 1998, the threesome returned to the studio and recorded 2000's Minor Earth, Major Sky, which resulted in a new tour, and a videocast performance of a-ha (with Briskeby) opening the new Vallhall stadium in Oslo. "A-ha on the net" in 2001 from Valhall in Oslo Norway, was the 3rd most viewed webcast concert ever as 3.6 million hits were recorded, 500,000 with an average viewing time of 28 minutes. The average viewing time was the longest for a webcast concert. Only webcasts by Madonna and Paul McCartney recorded more hits. Sales of this album and 2002's Lifelines showed that their fanbase was still there, and also that they were able to attract new audiences, especially in Central Europe and Scandinavia, where the albums sold extremely well. They appeared again at the Nobel Peace Prize concert in 2001. a-ha's musicvideo for the song, " I Wish I Cared " was the first fully web-based animated flash music video to be made available .

A live album (from their 2002 tour) with the title How Can I Sleep With Your Voice in My Head? was released in March of 2003, preceded by a live single of the 1986 classic "The Sun Always Shines on TV". In 2004, an in-depth book entitled The Swing Of Things was published, also featuring a CD of early demo material. In 2004, a-ha celebrated their 20th anniversary with the release of a new singles collection: The Singles: 1984-2004. This compilation brought them back into the UK Top 20 Album Charts, where they reached No. 13. Over their career, a-ha have officially released 32 singles. 13 of these became top ten singles in the UK, and 14 singles have been number one on the radio lists over the world. The new singles album includes some of the highlights from a-ha’s last 20 years. On July 2, 2005, a-ha performed at the Live 8 Berlin concert. Following music legend and former Beach Boy Brian Wilson, a-ha took the stage in Berlin in front of an audience of nearly 200,000 people. They started out with "Hunting High and Low," with the requisite audience participation near the end. "Take on Me" got the crowd moving, however, Morten Harket had severe difficulties hearing himself and requested a two minutes break, which he used to comment on the cause of Live 8 and the "Long Walk to Justice". The two minutes break became an almost seven minutes break and the third song, "Summer Moved On", became the last although four songs had been rehersed. Unfortunately, a-ha's alotted time had run out and the organizers told them to leave the stage. Following the concert, Magne Furuholmen said that indeed they had had some technical difficulties. "That is normal in a festival this size. In the end, the audience wanted more when we left the stage, so hopefully we did our bit for the overall success of the event", he commented.

On September 12th, a-ha returned to the U.S (at Irving Plaza in New York City) for the band's first concert on American soil since 1986. A short impromptu performance of "Take on Me" occurred on September 11th in Times Square. On August 27, 2005, the band played a concert for 120,000 people in Frognerparken in Oslo, the largest concert ever in Norway.

On November 4, 2005, the band released their new studio album, Analogue. The first single "Celice" was released on October 4 in mainland Europe. Later that same month, a tour followed, with concerts in Brussels, France, Germany and the UK. While the first UK release of the track, 'Analogue' followed in the UK, January 2006, giving a-ha their first top 10 hit in the UK since 1988. More recently some more dates have been added, including a gig at London's Shepherd's Bush on 2nd February 2006, a TV special in Africa and a festival gig in Chile. The third single in Europe (second in the UK) from the album was the Magne Furuholmen penned "Cosy Prisons", already a live-staple in the band's set. Their upcoming tour will take them to Norway, London, and Russia. Despite the success of the Irving Plaza show the previous year, and much to the dismay of their United States fan base, the band have no Canadian or American dates scheduled, or even a domestic release of Analogue.

Discography

For more details about the discography, see A-ha discography.

Miscellaneous

Trivia

• A-ha lead singer, Morten Harket is responsible for the 80's "ripped jeans" fashion trend. He was rushing to the stage in a 1985 performance where he ran past an amplifier and accidentally tore his jeans on the edge. He later stated "Oops! I didn't see that!" And the rest is history.He later used razor blades to achieve the same effect, as did many other bands that followed.

• During the promotion of a-ha in the USA in the '80s, the American media often compared Morten Harket's looks to the looks of a young Elvis Presley and James Dean.

• a-ha won 8 MTV awards during one MTV award show in 1986.(This was the first MTV Music Awards show and A-ha has the notoriety of being the first band/artist to receive the "Best Video" award.)

• Morten Harket was offered a role as a villain's henchman in the James Bond movie The Living Daylights. However he declined, due to lack of time and because the producers only wanted him in the movie because of his popularity and not his acting skills. a-ha wrote and performed the title song for the movie. However, he did take up an acting role, as the character of Christoffer in the two Norwegian Kamilla and Tyven movies made in the late 80s.

• A-ha is the first Norwegian band to garner international success.

• In 1989 a-ha played in Rio de Janeiro at the Praça da Apoteose (the place where the Rio carnaval takes place annually). The organizers expected an audience of 40,000; however 100,000 showed up — it was chaos.

• On the tour of South America in 1991, a-ha played for over 3 million people in under a month and 25 shows, in addition to their world record performance at the Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

• In 1991 a-ha set a Guinness Book World Record by playing for the largest paying audience in the world: 198,000 people.

• East of the Sun and West of the Moon is the name of a Norwegian folk tale.

• The song "Angel In The Snow" was actually written by Paul for his wife Lauren, in 1991, when they got married.

• An a-ha poster can be seen on the wall during the Seinfeld episode "The Pez Dispenser", which was aired in 1992.

• Songs by a-ha have been included as background music in episodes of popular TV series, such as Baywatch, Melrose Place, South Park, Smallville and The Simpsons, as well as movies such as One Night at McCool's, Grosse Pointe Blank and Corky Romano and Beavis and Butthead.

• a-ha's music video for the song "I Wish I Cared" was the first fully web-based animated flash music video to be made available.

• In 1999 Paul Waaktaar-Savoy received an award: a-ha have been played 2,000,000 times on US radio-stations.

• "A-ha on the net" in 2001 from Valhall in Oslo Norway, was the 3rd most viewed webcast concert ever as 3.6 million hits were recorded, 500,000 with an average viewing time of 28 minutes. The average viewing time was the longest for a webcast concert. Only webcasts by Madonna and Paul McCartney recorded more hits. The webcast was made posible in connection with msn, Mercedes Benz and Accenture.

• a-ha tours with a backing band. The current band includes the drummer Per Lindvall, who used to play drums in ABBA's backing band, and has toured with a-ha since 2000.

• In June 1991, The last episode of "Twin Peaks" (directed by David Lynch) is aired for the first time. As a big Lynch fan, Pål sent him a tape containing 3-5 songs, amongst them "Sycamore Leaves", in the hope that he might sometime direct an a-ha video. Lynch was too busy with "Twin Peaks" to work with a-ha. Never-the-less Lynch rips off the song "Sycamore Leaves" in this last episode (slightly changed, but with the same structure and called "Sycamore Trees") but doesn't credit Pål.

• According to Pål in the book, The Swing of Things, the official a-ha biography, whilst recording in Prince's Paisley Park studios, Mags scrawled the word 'Prince' in felt pen on the childs urinal in the men's loo, referring to Prince's incredibly small frame. Apparently it was removed "impressively fast"!!

• a-ha has performed at two Nobel Peace Prize concerts, the most prestigious awardshow in the world. a-ha performed in 1998 and 2001. (Morten Harket has also performed solo once.) The 1998 performance was a-ha's comeback into the world of music.

• a-ha was featured in the 9th episode of the 4th season of Family Guy when one of the main characters, Chris Griffin, was pulled into a parody-version of the "Take On Me"-video.

Commentary on a-ha

"Morten looked like Elvis Presley and had the operatic voice of Roy Orbison" (Jeff Ayeroff, Warner's marketing genius in 1985. Comment from 2005)

"...A-Ha are some of the greatest unacknowledged geniuses of pop's past two decades." (The Guardian reviews a-ha's Royal Albert Hall concert in London 2002)

"As a 12 year old, Hunting High and Low was always in my head, and a-ha still continues to be an important band to me." (Chris Martin, Coldplay)

"Everyone asks us who has inspired Coldplay, who we have stolen from, who we listened to when we grew up. Such questions remind you of what has formed you and had an impact on you. The first bands I loved were a-ha and James." (Chris Martin, Coldplay)

"I was in Amsterdam the other day and I put on the album Hunting High and Low. I remembered right there and then how much I loved that album. It's just unbelievable songwriting." (Chris Martin, Coldplay, 2005)

"Morten Harket has a fantastic voice and a-ha has been one of our favorite bands for many years. a-ha has a sort of nordic sound." (Neil Tennant, The Pet Shop Boys)

"They are definitely my favourites this summer. Their last CD (Minor Earth, Major Sky) is just fantastic, and how the vocalist sings!" (Sarah Brightman)

"a-ha was always kind of a misunderstood band in my ears. They were perceived as a teenage group for girls, but in reality a very creative band." (Adam Clayton, U2)

"When we heard U2's "Beautiful Day" for the first time, the part where Bono sings "Touch Me", we thought right away that that sounds like a-ha!" (Keane)

"I have always liked the band" (Leonard Cohen)

"That man got pipes." (Carl Perkins commenting on Morten Harket's voice)

"I met a-ha for the first time on Barbados, and got a very positive impression of them. Different personalities that strives together and creates something creative. I stands respect of what they do, and we got a good contact. When I and David Crosby played in Oslo earlier this winter, Morten appeard backstage after the concert. There we began to talk about the possibility of contributing with a little vocal, and now it's done. a-ha is a good band, and the song I did backing on is very good." (Graham Nash of The Hollies / Crosby Stills & Nash, from a 2005 interview. Nash will do some backing vocals on one of a-ha's new songs)

"It was so cool that they were there! a-ha was one of the bands that were really in the spotlight on MTV in the '80s. That's why it was really fun that they participated at Live 8." (Audioslave, 2005)

I remember Morten Harket from my youth, me and my buddies thought he was cool. I've been aware of their comeback. It's good to see them again, the vocalist continues. ( Liam Gallagher, Oasis 26.01.2006 )

- This is one of my absolute favourites of all time ( Kanya West, singing " Take On Me, 2006 )

(Comments taken from The Swing of Things, the official a-ha biography - on Press Forlag, and newspaper interviews in Norway and the UK )

Tours

• Hunting High and Low World Tour 1986 / 1987 (Europe / USA / Canada / Japan / Australia)
• Stay On These Roads Tour 1988 / 1989 (Europe / Japan / Brazil)
• Walk Under the Sun Dance Under the Moon Tour 1991 (South America incl. Brazil, Argentina and Chile)
• East of the Sun West of the Moon Tour 1991 (Europe)
• Memorial Beach Tour 1993 / 1994 (Europe / Russia / South Africa / Middle East)
• Minor Earth Major Sky Tour 2000 / 2001 (Japan / Europe / Russia)
• Lifelines Tour 2002 (Europe / Russia / Brazil)
• Mini Tour of Russia and Norway 2003 / 2004 (Russia / Norway)
• Analogue Tour 2005 / 2006 (Europe / USA / Chile / Senegal)

Tour 2005 / 2006 is currently running. So far it includes Europe and one show in the USA, Chile and Senegal.

a-ha has toured in these countries so far ( 1986 - 2005 ):

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia, Scotland, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, USA.

See also

• Best selling music artists — World's top-selling music artists chart.
• List of artists who reached number one on the Australian singles chart

External links