A-Ha: MTV Unplugged - Summer Solstice

A-HA: MTV UNPLUGGED: SUMMER SOLSTICE (2017)

CD 1: 1) This Is Our Home; 2) Lifelines; 3) I've Been Losing You; 4) Analogue (All I Want); 5) The Sun Always Shines On TV; 6) A Break In The Clouds; 7) Foot Of The Mountain; 8) Stay On These Roads; 9) This Alone Is Love; 10) Over The Treetops; 11) Forever Not Yours.

CD 2: 1) Sox Of The Fox; 2) Scoundrel Days; 3) The Killing Moon; 4) Summer Moved On; 5) Memorial Beach; 6) Living A Boys Adventure Tale; 7) Manhattan Skyline; 8) The Living Daylights; 9) Hunting High And Low; 10) Take On Me.

General verdict: I never thought I'd openly prefer synth-pop A-Ha to acoustic A-Ha if I were given the chance, but here is this chance, and, honestly, I think they blew it.

The most I have learned from listening to this record is that, believe it or not, the «MTV Un­plugged» concept still exists. Yes, apparently, they still produce these shows from time to time; it is just that, since most of them are now reserved for the likes of Miley Cyrus, the probability of my ever encountering one is close to zero. In any case, even this particular show was recorded in a small, near-secret studio on the Norwegian island of Giske, which is about as far from any kind of MTV headquarters as possible; and what the show really did was kick off a small acoustic tour, meaning that this was not just an isolated event, but rather the start of a carefully pre-planned temporary image change — and MTV just came along for the ride.

On the surface, it would seem that acoustic A-Ha might be a great idea: their main strength was always in the melodies and catchy hooks, and all those who have issues with their synth-pop style could surely welcome the change. And they took the idea seriously, coming up with significant rearrangements — keys, tempos, instrumentation — that give you completely different versions of the songs, while simultaneously retaining most of the hooks. Throw in the fact that Morten Harket remains forever young (nearing 60, yet almost fully retaining the youthfulness of his ʽTake On Meʼ voice), and I was all set for a winner here.

Unfortunately, the actual results are somewhat limp. And the assembled setlist is not even the main problem — like just about any setlists, it could have been better, but they did a good job of representing nearly all the different stages of A-Ha (ironically, completely omitting their latest disaster, Cast In Steel, though there are two forgettable newly written songs to compensate), and I, for one, was pleased to see Analogue, their underrated masterpiece, being represented not just by the title track, but also by ʽOver The Treetopsʼ, arguably one of their most successful ventures into the world of psychedelia. And even if most of the time the band loyally concentrates on its well-known hits, the rearranged versions should technically be delaying boredom.

Yet it is still boring. They may have eliminated some of the excessive details of the originals' overproduction, but in doing so, they have also removed the energy pin — I mean, there is no way whatsoever that this particular version of ʽThe Living Daylightsʼ, slowed down and softened up, could be a hit; and while the melodic content of ʽTake On Meʼ may be even easier appreciate than it used to be, the head-spinning effect of the youthful, passionate original is no longer present here — now the song is more of an acoustic guitar-and-piano lullaby than an over-the-top love serenade; interesting for one listen, perhaps, but relating to the old variant pretty much the same way that Clapton's much-maligned acoustic ʽLaylaʼ relates to the classic (and I actually like the acoustic ʽLaylaʼ).

Bringing in some old and new friends to sit in on the session hardly helps. For ʽI've Been Losing Youʼ, they enlist American singer-songwriter Lissie, who sounds just like your average American singer-songwriter with a kind heart and a forgettable personality. (It may be important that now the guy and the girl are both losing each other, but it does not exactly open up a new dimension in this fairly straightforward tune). On ʽThe Sun Always Shines On TVʼ, they are joined by fellow Norwegian songwriter Ingrid Helene Håvik — who may simply have been in the neighborhood, since I fail to detect anything special about her voice. Worst of all is ʽSummer Moved Onʼ, for which they enlist Alison Moyet of Yazoo fame: I have no idea what her testosterone-heavy voice has to do with the plaintive lyricism of the song, other than provide a good pretext for Harket not hitting that ultra-long note in "left to ask...", replacing it with a cute little melismatic dance for two — nice, but cheap, buddy. Just admit that you can't do it any more, we will understand.

The big deal is supposed to happen when they extract Ian McCulloch, the hero of Echo & The Bunnymen, to help them on ʽScoundrel Daysʼ, and then return the favor by covering his own ʽKilling Moonʼ. This is a touching moment that will probably appeal to the fanbase of both bands, though I cannot certify that they spark up any additional magic; it does, however, make me think that, perhaps, putting together some sort of supergroup consisting of formerly gorgeous frontmen of New Wave and synth-pop acts and having them redo all their stuff with acoustic guitars, pianos, and strings could be a memorable act.

Other than that, I do not really know what to say — just randomly playing some of the originals back to back with the reworked versions and discovering, for instance, that the oddly Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young-ian flavor of ʽOver The Treetopsʼ has faded away now that Morten sings the song in a lower key, and the distorted lead guitar vs. falsetto harmonies charm of old is no longer present; or that the frustration and anger of ʽManhattan Skylineʼ have been replaced by lifeless whining — granted, one man's lifeless whining is another one's sensual beauty, but I do not think that an album of this stature requires careful analytical scrutiny of one's gut feeling, and my gut feeling says there is definitely something missing. I understand the decision to soften up and quiet down — nobody is getting younger — but the fact is, these songs were not so magical in the first place that softening and quieting them down can open up their hidden potential.

A-Ha: Cast In Steel

A-HA: CAST IN STEEL (2015)

1) Cast In Steel; 2) Under The Makeup; 3) The Wake; 4) Forest Fire; 5) Objects In The Mirror; 6) Door Ajar; 7) Living At The End Of The World; 8) Mythomania; 9) She's Humming A Tune; 10) Shadow Endeavors; 11) Giving Up The Ghost; 12) Goodbye Thompson.

I honestly do not understand why they need to do this. Morten Harket has a perfectly fine solo career going on, and now this is what, the third A-Ha reunion in history? Fourth? Fifth? What do we do with Ending On A High Note, rename it to save face or pretend it never existed? «Final tour», my ass. If you're gonna go, go in style. Take an example from the frickin' Beatles.

Besides, the new album does little to quench the indignation, and so I would like to keep it short. Not only is this no Analogue (and God knows I've secretly always hoped for them to make one more Analogue), this isn't even a Minor Earth Major Sky. Instead, it is a completely by-the-book, song-by-song-predictable «A-Ha-ish» album: fragile, bittersweet romance non-stop, with each song setting exactly the same mood as the previous one and we all know very well what that mood is. A dozen updates on ʽSummer Moved Onʼ, without even one single song of the same epic caliber. Rumor has it that many of these were actually outtakes and quick polish jobs on old ideas, and I believe this — just a quickie to serve as an incentive for more touring.

Supportive fans will want to argue that this is what the band does best, or point out the awesome shape in which Harket's voice still finds itself, or at least state that, you know, this is an improve­ment on Foot Of The Mountain. And yes, the songs are a little less embarrassing. But at least Foot set up a curious goal — recapture the inspired innocence of the band's early synth-pop be­ginnings — and it was instructive to see it fail. Cast In Steel sets itself no goals: it is just a bunch of tolerable, unimpressive, unambitious adult contemporary pop songs that all sound the same. I mean, believe it or not, the exceptional status of A-Ha was due to their not being a one-trick pony: over that ʽSummer Moved Onʼ vibe, they could always drop a touch of hard rock, or a splosh of colorful psychedelia, or a rousing anthemic call. Nothing like that here.

Of course, there are melodies, and sometimes briefly memorable vocal hooks, and yes, Harket is still a fine singer, though, creepy as it is, he seems to have almost completely lost (or discarded) his lower range as he grew older. Long-time fans who just want to have more of the same will not be disappointed. Me, I can't even bring myself to writing a few words about even one single indi­vidual song on here. Just keep touring, guys, as long as you're still able to wring some emotion out of the old classics — the new ones are as thumbs down-worthy as they come.

A-Ha: Ending On A High Note

A-HA: ENDING ON A HIGH NOTE (2011)

1) The Sun Always Shines On TV; 2) Move To Memphis; 3) The Blood That Moves The Body; 4) Scoundrel Days; 5) The Swing Of Things; 6) Forever Not Yours; 7) Stay On These Roads; 8) Manhattan Skyline; 9) Hunting High And Low; 10) We're Looking For The Whales; 11) Butterfly, Butterfly; 12) Crying In The Rain; 13) Minor Earth, Major Sky; 14) Summer Moved On; 15) I've Been Losing You; 16) Foot Of The Mountain; 17) Cry Wolf; 18) Ana­logue; 19) The Living Daylights; 20) Take On Me.

Fairly literally so: the famous high E that concludes the chorus to ʽTake On Meʼ is the last note taken on by Morten at the end of the show. Now in all fairness, this live album (available in CD as well as DVD format) is only there for the ultimate fan — approximately three quarters of the setlist are exactly the same tunes as had already been released less than a decade earlier on How Can I Sleep..., so the primary purpose here is clearly to provide documental proof of what, in 2011 at least, was presented to the public as the very, very, very last show A-Ha would ever play as A-Ha. (But set your watches up for a Silver Jubilee Reunion anyway).

The exact date of the last show was December 4, 2010, and it was reverentially played at home, at the Oslo Spektrum; the 2-CD concert includes all but two songs played that night, and it is intere­sting to note what was excluded: (a) ʽBowling Greenʼ, an Everley Bros. cover that they probably cut because they thought two Everley Bros. covers on one live album would seem like overkill — and how can there be an A-Ha live album without ʽCrying In The Rainʼ?; (b) ʽThe Bandstandʼ — the opening number on Foot Of The Mountain, an album they were sort of supposed to promote with that tour, but which, in the end, turned out to be represented by just the title track. Not that we should feel sorry — at the very least, it is reassuring to know that the band did not regard its last album as a masterpiece.

Anyway, the general quality of an A-Ha live show usually seems to be in direct proportion to the state of their lead singer's voice, and I see no problem here: be it the enchanted falsetto of ʽTake On Meʼ or the lengthiest-soundwave-on-Earth of ʽSummer Moves Onʼ (diversified here by ad­ding just a tiny touch of non-irritating melisma), he remains in fine form from start to finish —  one can only hope that this is indeed the end of A-Ha, and that general listeners will not have to endure the suffering as Harket's pitch inevitably deteriorates over the years à la Ian Gillan or (even worse) Art Garfunkel.

If there is a general problem with the show, it is only that the band has set itself up, in accordance with its reputation, as more of a «synth-pop» ensemble than a «rock» one — in other words, the «purification» of their image, introduced on Foot Of The Mountain, is carried over to the live show, with keyboards taking a generally more active part than guitars. This exerts a negative in­fluence on songs like ʽMove To Memphisʼ (whose teeth-grinding funky rhythm is smothered by wishy-washy synths and limp percussion) and ʽMinor Earth, Major Skyʼ, where the cosmic-psy­chedelic atmosphere of the original also seems cheapened by the keyboards. Still, most of the songs performed, want it or not, are in the synth-pop aesthetics, so why complain?

The setlist, as can be seen, covers the band's entire career, leaving no stone unturned though pre­dictably concentrating on the hits, but it is nice to see them not leaving out Analogue (alas, only the title track gets performed, but then it would have been too much to expect them sing ʽHalf­way Through The Tourʼ when they are already done with the tour), and they also do ʽButterfly, But­ter­flyʼ, the last studio recording they released as a single — a pleasant, if not too memorable, ballad, backed by regular pianos and acoustic guitars.

I suppose that most of the fans went home fully satisfied that night, and it is only in (slight) retrospect that we realize the show is not fully representative of the band's true potential, being too heavily skewed in the ʽTake On Meʼ direc­tion. But then there are very few people in the world in the first place who would agree to thinking of A-Ha as something more than just a sweet boy band with a digital fixation, one more gross relic of the funny hair decade, and Harket and co. may be excused for not specifically pandering for that minor subset of their fanbase. And on the whole, I really enjoyed this, so what's to stop us from one more final thumbs up?..

Check "Ending On A High Note" (CD) on Amazon

A-ha: Foot Of The Mountain

A-HA: FOOT OF THE MOUNTAIN (2009)

1) The Bandstand; 2) Riding The Crest; 3) What There Is; 4) Foot Of The Mountain; 5) Real Meaning; 6) Shadow­side; 7) Nothing Is Keeping You Here; 8) Mother Nature Goes To Heaven; 9) Sunny Mystery; 10) Start The Simulator..

Yes, I do believe that only a serious decision to split up for good could have redeemed the release of Foot Of The Mountain. It does not happen too often when an artist releases his weakest effort right after his strongest one, and it is an even more rare case when it is so very easy to precisely pin­point what the hell went wrong, and so very hard to understand why it went so wrong.

The melodies are okay. All the songs are originals, and expert songwriters like Paul and Magne do not simply shed their pop skills overnight. This is A-Ha all right, simple, but effective key­board chord changes and Morten «Penthouse Romance» Harket's angelic croon all over them. But for some devilish reason, someone in the devil's personal pay suggested that it would be nice to revisit the band's original synth-pop style. After all, Sixties' nostalgia does not pay off so well any more — whoever buys records when they're over sixty? But Eighties' nostalgia — now we're tal­king. Lots of hungry fourty-year olds out there, yearning for another 'Take On Me'. And even those old hairstyles, ridiculed and seemingly forgotten a long time ago, are on the verge of beco­ming fashionable once more.

And so Foot Of The Mountain takes the plunge; but these guys are not adolescents any more, they could not really produce another 'Take On Me' even under the threat of having their entire catalog pulled off the shelves. The final result sounds like a clumsy cross between the cheesy, but explosive synth-pop of Hunting High And Low and the boring, overproduced, meaninglessly modernistic pap of Life(less)lines. If there are good songs buried here — and I freely admit this possibility — they are not merely buried, but nailed tight to their coffin with the finest in elec­tronic stakes.

The synth tones that Magne is choosing do sound fairly close to what it used to be, but they do not, cannot, need not, must not convey any real emotion. Listen to the ten seconds that open the album ('The Bandstand'): this is what it all sounds like, more or less. Silly techno sounds, but this time around, without the youthful drive that somehow redeemed them in the past. Just silly, for­get­table techno sounds.

I refuse to name individual songs or discuss them. Re-record them with guitars and pianos and we might resume this discussion. (Actually, the title track that is dominated by a piano melody, is the closest it ever gets to an effective song). As it is, I personally will prefer to think that the true swan song of A-Ha sounded four years earlier, with Analog. Foot Of The Mountain is merely an afterthought, a misguided, clueless «gift» to their oldest fans. Quite likely, some of the oldest fans may have been pleased with it. More power to them! I give it a thumbs down. And — how dare they even say 'Riding The Crest' has been inspired by Arcade Fire's Neon Bible!

A-ha: How Can I Sleep With Your Voice In My Head

A-HA: HOW CAN I SLEEP WITH YOUR VOICE IN MY HEAD (2003)

1) Forever Not Yours; 2) Minor Earth Major Sky; 3) Manhattan Skyline; 4) I've Been Losing You; 5) Crying In The Rain; 6) The Sun Always Shines On TV; 7) Did Anyone Approach You; 8) The Swing Of Things; 9) Lifelines; 10) Stay On These Roads; 11) Hunting High And Low; 12) Take On Me; 13) The Living Daylights; 14) Summer Moved On; 15*) Scoundrel Days; 16*) Oranges On Appletrees; 17*) Cry Wolf; 18*) Dragonfly; 19*) Time And Again; 20*) Sycamore Leaves.

Glossy pop bands do not generally need live albums — it's not like they often feel the need to improvise or pull weird artsy rarities out of their backlog — but this particular proposition from our Norwegian charmers may be worth your attention, anyway. The bad news is that it was recor­ded on the Lifelines tour, and, consequently, feels obliged to include a pinch of dreck from that disaster. The good news is — just about everything else.

Actually, the two important questions here are as follows: (a) will Morten be able to sing all his complex parts live as effectively as he does them in the studio?; (b) will the band's overall sound tend to rock out more — will they, in fact, be able to sound like an actual band? If the answer to even one of these questions were to be «no», the album would have a very good reason not to ex­ist. And with a band as wobbly as A-Ha, you never can predict anything: they are just as capable of ugly blunders as they are of explosions of genius.

Yet it turns out that fortune is on our (and their) side this time. Harket is in great form; not a sin­gle one of these performances has a thing to be ashamed of, and if this is a typical night for A-Ha, he should be welcome to the ranks of the hardest-working live performers in show-biz. Twenty years of performing have not worn him out one bit. I am pretty sure that, today, he curses Waak­taar to high heaven for setting him up with that twenty-second long note on 'Summer Moved On' — but in 2003, at least, he was still able to handle it perfectly (although notice that it does leave him briefly out of breath for the next lines).

As for the overall sound, yes, it is very sensible. Synth pop fans may quibble and complain, but they do some, if not most, of the old numbers with less emphasis on the keyboards and more em­phasis on Paul's guitar riffs, cranking up the volume and churning up a whiff of distortion; check out the difference between the original 'I've Been Losing You', for instance, and this new treat­ment, with the song seriously funkified and enlivened. Even 'Take On Me', while still true to its roots, keeps boiling and boiling and, although the main recognizable synthesizer melody remains intact, Paul eventually takes over and turns it into a power-pop guitar anthem.

Not everyone will be happy about 'The Living Daylights' — a James Bond theme song arranged as the centerpiece of the show, with the audience forced to sing the chorus and a reggae interlude? But I guess a hit is a hit, and this is, after all, A-Ha's most well-known tune (remember that 'Take On Me' is only familiar with the Eighties generation, while 'The Living Daylights' is being regu­la­rly consumed by everyone watching the Bond TV marathons).

If you have the chance, go for the 2-CD edition; the bonus disc offers note-perfect renditions of 'Scoundrel Days' and 'Cry Wolf', a pretty sentimental performance of 'Dragonfly', and Paul taking lead vocals on my personal favourite, 'Sycamore Leaves' — which forms a far more interesting and tasty conclusion to the whole experience than the awesome, but predictable 'Summer Moved On'. (But why have they removed the organ riff? That was the creepiest part!)

How Can I Sleep is not the only live album by A-Ha (the recently released Live At Valhall, from an earlier performance in 2001, is another solid offering), but I do not think there exists a serious reason to own more than one: once you know what their live show looks like, you can sa­fely go back to the studio offerings. Still, if you are still in doubt about the overall validity of this band, I think that it is definitely a shot in the arm to their reputation rather than a kick in the guts. A hearty thumbs up.

A-ha: Analogue

A-HA: ANALOGUE (2005)

1) Celice; 2) Don't Do Me Any Favours; 3) Cosy Prisons; 4) Analogue; 5) Birthright; 6) Holy Ground; 7) Over The Treetops; 8) Halfway Through The Tour; 9) A Fine Blue Line; 10) Keeper Of The Flame; 11) Make It Soon; 12) White Dwarf; 13) The Summers Of Our Youth.

East Of The Sun may have been the ultimate A-Ha experience, but Analogue is simply the best A-Ha album — even though, for the most part, it sounds not one bit like A-Ha. It got some mild critical praise, yielded a couple briefly high-charting singles for the European market, and then got washed away for good, failing to shift the general memory of A-Ha as the «'Take On Me' group with the sexy singer». Why should it?

Well, there are some good reasons. Almost as if Lifelines never happened, the boys make a sharp stylistic turn, completely jettisoning modernistic trappings and making a record that hearkens back — way beyond Eighties synth-pop, aiming straight at the heart of the art-pop movement of the late Sixties and early Seventies. Of course, they always had that tendency — but this is the first (and last) time they made a record that does not sound ashamed of it, but, on the contrary, proudly throws its retro-ishness in your face.

With too much force, perhaps: I was all but astonished at reading people condemning the beauty of Analogue on various fora, until it dawned on me that most of these people must have grown up listening to 'Take On Me' and 'The Living Daylights', and that this is what they still expect from Harket and Waaktar-Savoy — whereas people who could care less about Norwegian teen idols in the 1980s hardly have a big reason to care more about them today. In other words, the good old tragedy of clumsy niche-jumping.

But am I ever glad they made that jump. It was obvious, almost from the start, that Analogue is a record these guys always had in them, what with all the talent; that it took them twenty years to finally get around to it is nothing compared to the fact that it is finally here. Plus, age has certain­ly wisened them up, opened new horizons, raised new issues, and made them independent enough to produce the record in exactly the right way.

What are the album's influences? Well, I hear a little McCartney, a little Elton John, a little Neil Young, a little Badfinger, a little Moody Blues, and if I listen to it some more, I will most certain­ly double the list. One might say that, behind all these influences, we do not get to hear much A-Ha, but there never was one particular, immutable brand of A-Ha; the main virtue of these guys is that they are musical chameleons, whose only near-constant assets are hooky songwriting and Harket's angel voice. This you certainly get on Analogue, in spades.

Thirteen tracks that range from «nice» to «gorgeous», each song meaningful (even if the meaning never goes too deep) and evocative. We have some synths, but generally the album is dominated by (in descending order) piano, acoustic and electric guitars, the latter with a heavy psychedelic sheen sometimes. For instance, on 'Over The Treetops' Harket gets helped out from Mr. Graham Nash in per­son on backing vocals — and the two end up sounding like... Neil Young (!) on some of his early records, although the song's vibe is more akin to LSD-fuelled artists of the decade.

'Halfway Through The Tour' is another clear highlight — a gloriously anthemic Beatlesque pop-rocker for the first three minutes, a folk-ambient Brian Eno-ish instrumental for the last four; the two parts creak at the seams a little bit, but are equally uplifting. For a band that never did instru­mental compositions before, that four-minute coda is a true marvel of sound. Also, the lyrics, vaguely dealing with the issues on life of the road, do not fit the melody very well (too earthly for its hea­venly aspirations), but no one forces you to take them literally; think of the «tour» as a me­taphor for a journey through parallel realities and it all falls together.

"Give it up for rock'n'roll, give it up for how it made you feel", Harket sings on 'Keeper Of The Flame', and one might think of the song as cheap nostalgia for the good old days — but the em­phasis is not on giving it up for rock'n'roll, the emphasis is on giving it up, period; it is a beautiful ballad of mourning for things that never came to be: "Monumental monuments, sentimental sen­timents, you could have been the keeper of the flame". A strange song, but as gorgeous a piano pop ballad as they ever write them.

None of these were singles, though. The ones that were are a little less obviously retro. 'Celice' is a kick-ass pop-rocker, pushed forward by a simple, persistent, undetachable guitar riff and paying tribute to Cocteau Twins in the background, where Paul concocts a wall-of-sound of guitar trills and spacey effects. The title track is a kick-ass pop-rocker, pushed forward by a simple, persistent, undetachable piano riff and paying tribute to no one in particular in the background, where Paul, nevertheless, still concocts a wall-of-sound of guitar trills and spacey effects. And 'Cosy Prisons' sounds like contemporary Paul McCartney. A bit.

Where the record is not proverbially gorgeous, it is, at the least, engaging by being utterly unpre­dictable. 'Make It Soon', for instance, begins as a bare-bones acoustic ballad, with only the slight­est touch of a hint at its being able to «explode» — and even so, no one can guess that, when it does explode, it does so through a wildly distorted psychedelic guitar solo, before settling back into its dangerously romantic vibe once more.

There is little doubt in my mind that, had this not been an official A-Ha album, but an obscure in­die record by an obscure indie band released on an obscure indie label, the people from Pitchfork and similar places would have been falling all over it, putting it on Top 10 lists and writing about it defining the sound of the new millennium. As it is, no one is supposed to listen to former teen idols in the new millennium, and few will be convinced that this is not merely an intricate reor­ganization of the 'Take On Me' approach. Their loss, brother. Thumbs up from the brain, amazed at how much work went into this thing, and same from the heart that has, by now, learned to look past Morten Harket's bare chest and sleazy haircuts — in fact, to hell with all that image stuff al­toge­ther, let us just enjoy the music while we can.

A-ha: Lifelines

A-HA: LIFELINES (2002)

1) Lifelines; 2) You Wanted More; 3) Forever Not Yours; 4) There's A Reason For It; 5) Time And Again; 6) Did Anyone Approach You?; 7) Afternoon High; 8) Oranges On Appletrees; 9) A Little Bit; 10) Less Than Pure; 11) Turn The Lights Down; 12) Cannot Hide; 13) White Canvas; 14) Dragonfly; 15) Solace.

A whole team of different, but equally respectable producers helped the band out on this one. You'd think the result should have been a mess, and you'd be right: Lifelines is a mess. Sur­prisingly, though, it is not an exciting mess of breathtaking successes and misguided failures. It is simply a lightweight, va­pid, fake-sounding mess. A mess such as would naturally result from the band's expressing a serious desire... to become the new Backstreet Boys. Did they really? I hope they did not. But reason tells me they really did.

These are horrible arrangements. Horrible. The instruments have lost all life, the rhythm section reduced to stereotypical bad movie soundtrack pulsations, the melodies relying on clichés, the lyrics being clichés. Good moments — moments — abound throughout, but they are almost im­mediately washed away by rivers of syrup, streams of corn, and oceans of cheese. How the heck could this be possible, so soon after the inventive dark maturity of Minor Earth? Who told them to return to the primitive teen aesthetics of 1986, accomodating it to the needs of the new millen­nium? At least in 1986 they were pretty much teens themselves. But in 2002?..

The only song that qualifies as a relatively solid bit — the only one — is the title track, whose dreamy sequence of 'What do you see, what do you know? One sign, what do I do?..' recreates the treasurable part of the A-Ha spirit in a believable manner. Its «adult contemporary» sound seems to have a wee bit of depth that the rest of the songs does not. But the other hits do not even begin to reach it: 'Forever Not Yours' is American Idol-style pablum, miserably failing to put Morten's singing to good use (the way he bleats out the chorus is just painful), and 'Did Anyone Approach You?' is clearly just a marketing ploy, concocting a «mysterious» atmosphere around a very flat dance melody that is really no fun whatsoever.

'Less Than Pure' is just about the only song on the album that preserves faint traces of aggressive desperation, the same emotion whose puncturing made previous records so enjoyable. But even that song is definitely «less than pure». Everything else is simply too shallow, too happy, too dis­gustingly clean. Clearly, the experiment did not work. Thumbs down for a record that the band members, if they are really smart, should have long ago disowned, putting the blame on their pro­ducers. Amazing, though, considering that one of the producers used to produce for the Pet Shop Boys, and the other two used to produce for Elvis Costello. Was this a subtle revenge on their part, getting even with their protegés' commercial competition in the Eighties?

A-ha: Minor Earth, Major Sky

A-HA: MINOR EARTH MAJOR SKY (2000)

1) Minor Earth Major Sky; 2) Little Black Heart; 3) Velvet; 4) Summer Moved On; 5) The Sun Never Shone That Day; 6) To Let You Win; 7) The Company Man; 8) Thought That It Was You; 9) I Wish I Cared; 10) Barely Han­ging On; 11) You'll Never Get Over Me; 12) I Won't Forget Her; 13) Mary Ellen Makes The Moment Count.

There is probably no harm in speculating on the idea that A-Ha's comeback could have been trig­gered by the popularity of the new wave of vocal groups, such as the Backstreet Boys — after almost a decade's worth of grunge, Brit-pop, and R'n'B dominating the charts, sexy teen idols ini­tiated their revenge, and, considering that Morten could still qualify as such (apparently, he is very careful about his diet, which works wonders for both his voice and his good looks), A-Ha agreed to give it one more chance.

It all started with 'Summer Moved On', of course; the resting band was conjured to reconvene at the Nobel Peace Prize Contest in 1998, for which occasion Paul wrote a new song — and every­one liked it. I like it, too. It features the well-recognized gimmick of having the longest note held (in a hit song, at least) — during the bridge, Morten drags the line 'there's just one thing left to ask...' for over twenty seconds (and has, in fact, done this ever since in most of the band's live shows). But even without this bit of Guinness trivia, it is still a golden stan­dard to which every writer and arranger of mainstream adult contemporary ballads should aspire. Rarely, if ever, does this genre feature anything close to Morten's falsetto interaction with the thunderous strings that give it a quasi-Beethovenish punch, although they take great care to preserve the general autum­nal mood that accompanies most of their hits.

With such an obvious success under their belts, it was clear that more activity would follow. Mi­nor Earth Major Sky put them back on the European charts, but failed to make a significant im­pression on the critics. Yet, again, in retrospect it definitely trumps the Backstreet Boys, even though much of it updates the A-Ha sound in an officially «late Nineties» way. Waaktaar-Savoy gets most of the credit: as good as Morten is throughout, it is his minor hooks that ensure listen­ability and, sometimes, even depth. And it is worth waiting for them — at first, the tunes might just seem the usual middle-of-the-road pop stuff with standard mid-tempo dance rhythms, «safe» acoustic backing tracks, predictable structures etc. But with a gifted songwriter and a tasteful sin­ger, A-Ha have broken through the synth-pop of the mid-Eighties and subdued the funk-pop of the early Nineties; what problem could they have with taming the teen-pop of the turn of the mil­lennium? Denying the beauty of Minor Earth is like denying the beauty of a Marilyn or a Sophia Loren — it's possible, it may be tempting, but don't you have anything better to do?

There are misfires. 'I Won't Forget Her' is very catchy, but songs that combine mid-tempo ska-ish rhythms with bubbly synthesizer tones are an official disgrace that should be forever reserved to third-grade pop acts in developing countries; I am astonished that the tune finds a spot on the same CD as 'Summer Moved On', almost to the point of writing a petition. There are a few more songs, nowhere near as offensive, but which simply fail to register. Yet so much is good! The title track, with its cloudy atmosphere, gritty bassline, and genuinely psychedelic chorus. 'Velvet', whose ethereal female harmonies remind me of AIR. The humility of 'To Let You Win', which just floats by at first, but then grabs you by being the only song on the album that absolutely re­fuses to grab you. The odd melancholy of 'You'll Never Get Over Me': it is hard to imagine a con­text for the lines 'you'll never get over me, I'll never get under you' that would not be humorous, but the music leaves no place for humour, only elegant sorrow.

If these little shards of compliments do not sound convincing, how about the band dragging out a friggin' Mellotron for the conclusion — the strange, haunting ballad 'Mary Ellen Makes The Mo­ment Count'? Supposedly it is the band's personal take on the subject of 'Eleanor Rigby', with the depiction of a somewhat similar character, and I would not deem it out of place on any classic late Sixties' art-rock album. It may have been a bit pretentious of them to close the record that way — «look at us, we play it straight and simple, but we will go out with an art-pop song so your last memory will be of us as relevant, responsible, and refined artists» — but the key point here is that they qualify as such, if only with one or two songs, and this raises the overall score. It also delights the brain, a much-needed shot in the arm after the deadly mistake of 'I Won't Forget Her'; and the heart — the heart has long since pledged its support to Morten if he works hard eno­ugh to deserve it, and his is one of the most hard-working (not to mention hairless) bare chests in existence. Thumbs up for a respectable comeback.

A-ha: Memorial Beach

A-HA: MEMORIAL BEACH (1992)

1) Dark Is The Night For All; 2) Move To Memphis; 3) Cold As Stone; 4) Angel In The Snow; 5) Locust; 6) Lie Down In Darkness; 7) How Sweet It Was; 8) Lamb To The Slaughter; 9) Between Your Mama And Yourself; 10) Memorial Beach.

A-Ha's last album before calling it quits for the rest of the decade is sort of a mixed bag — a fai­lure by most objective standards, but very possibly a success by certain subjective ones. The big­gest problem is that, having lost their original face, they were still experiencing difficulties about finding a new one. On East Of The Sun, they at least tried several possible directions, and came out with a relatively diverse and talented collection. Memorial Beach, on the other hand, seems to pool most of the band's resources into a fierce competitive effort with the 'Madchester' scene — not only about two years too late (by 1992, the Stone Roses were no longer the hottest thing around), but also with no hope whatsoever.

Could anybody ever hope to believe that the sweet teen idols of yesterday would be able to stand their ground next to the biggest, weightiest «alt-dance» bands of the era? That Mor­ten Harket could come off as cool as Ian Brown? Obviously not. For a bunch of Norwegian nearly-has-beens to make a serious new impact on the British dance scene, the music had to be a real rocket; Me­morial Beach is more likely to be compared to an antique choo-choo train, slowly grumbling its way through the night.

Critics hated it, the public ignored it, and it was pretty obvious that the world simply had no need for more A-Ha product unless it ceased to be A-Ha product and became something else. A predi­ctable disaster. But the more we look back on Memorial Beach, the more it turns into a veritable memorial beach, one that may be worth paying a lonely visit for no particular purpose, but abso­lutely risk-free.

A-Ha's brand of modern funk is, of course, tremendously derivative, but the songs themselves are not altogether boring or pointless — 'Move To Memphis' has a catchy chorus; the eight-minute monster 'Cold As Stone' puts its two cents on «atmosphere» and more or less pockets a solid win­ning; 'Lie Down In Darkness' has swell vocal harmonies; and on 'How Sweet It Was', Harket lays down his best vocal performance on the album. No masterpieces, but still a soft touch of class on each of these things (and from a purely technical point, they are unassailable — these guys may not have the inventiveness or the freshness of the fathers of 'Madchester', but they have definitely studied the scene to perfection).

The ballads are shakier, as the band descends deeper into the pits of adult contemporary, with the required lack of focus, cheesy harmonies, and lyrical triteness — but there is no denying the sin­cerity of 'Angel In The Snow' (or the nice fact that its keyboard accompaniment is provided by a snowy winter electric organ) or the unusual otherworldliness of 'Locust', the band's only song written in «hypnotic lullaby» mood and deserving it. The choice of the album opener 'Dark Is The Night For All', which some critics have sneeringly compared to U2, for the single, was, however, unhappy — its anthemic strife is not well supported by its hooks, and its exaggerated idealism is an entirely false preview of the things that follow, which are really much better, but which may seem like a bored disappointment after the grand sweep of 'Dark Is The Night'.

Do not believe the one-star reviews when you meet them: no sane person had a good reason to listen to this record when it came out, but today, when no sane person has a good reason to listen to music at all, and what we are left with is either insane people or bad reasons, one-star re­views like these are hopelessly obsolete. A little bit of thumbs up is in order here, and if you are intere­sted at all in seeing A-Ha's career as reflecting the inner emotional journey of Morten Harket and his vocal tract, Memorial Beach is indispensable, if only to hear him sing 'The mirror sees you — so alone — cold as stone... yeah!' and still be able to admire his cool.

A-ha: East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon

A-HA: EAST OF THE SUN, WEST OF THE MOON (1990)

1) Crying In The Rain; 2) Early Morning; 3) I Call Your Name; 4) Slender Frame; 5) East Of The Sun; 6) Sycamore Leaves; 7) Waiting For Her; 8) Cold River; 9) The Way We Talk; 10) Rolling Thunder; 11) (Seemingly) Nonstop July.

This is good shit. It does not exactly light my fire, but it does not annoy me, either, and that is no mean feat for a mainstream pop album from 1990. This is where A-Ha first tried to become a «real» band, trading in some of their rusted synth gear for more traditional instruments — guitars, pianos, drums, even some brass and some strings. Electronica still provides the atmospheric back­grounds, but overall, this is definitely not «synth pop». Ironically, it also marked the start of their commercial decline — apparently, some of the old fans felt betrayed (indeed, what could ever be a more awful downer than hearing an actual boring old piano instead of a brand new Casio?), and new fans would rather dig in to groovier, trendier stuff emanating from the likes of Manchester.

But for me, this might just be the ultimate A-Ha experience. They may have betrayed the child­hood dreams of their oldest admirers, but they certainly have not abandoned the quintessence of their style. As usual, there is plenty of cool grace flying around, plenty of autumnal depression, plenty of old-style romanticizing, and plenty of pop hooks. And, in fact, the switch to traditional instruments makes them work harder for it: the arrangements have to be more complex, the melo­dies slightly less predictable, the singing more upfront. Like it or not, East Of The Sun is quite a masterful construction.

Some tracks are very easy to deride, particularly the ones where the band try to «rock out». Upon first listen, something like 'Cold River' feels like a highly stupid attempt at a «tough» sound that does not at all fit in with the band's personality. The obvious Beatles reference at the beginning ('Asked a girl if she needed a ride, she said, "sure babe, but I wanna drive"') may also seem irrita­tingly flat. But then you could throw the same accusation at the Beatles themselves, couldn't you? Wasn't 'Drive My Car' a stupid attempt at a «tough» sound? Hardly — it was a well-conceived pop-rocker that stopped at the exact borderline between «strong and catchy», something the Bea­tles did well, and «tough and aggressive», something they did not believe in with the same ease and, therefore, could not transmit all that well.

The same happens to A-Ha: they never overstep their boundaries, and even 'Cold River', with its thumping bass, bashing drums, flat lyrics, and Harket singing in a more rock'n'rollish manner than usual, is tolerable fun. Although, to be sure, I like the doom-laden 'Sycamore Leaves' a hell of a lot more — nothing beats its funereal organ rhythm and solo. Add an extra few dozen layers of gui­tars and keyboards, and one could pass it off for a lost Cure classic.

Most of the album's material continues, however, in a softer vein. 'Crying In The Rain' is their first attempt at covering outside material — and the selection of a Carole King/Everly Brothers number is more than appropriate and in very good taste, not to mention the symbolic gesture of placing it at the start of the album, as if to stress the straight line of development from the Everlys right down to A-Ha: sacrilegious for some, perhaps, but factually true. 'Early Morning' and 'Slen­der Frame' are minimalistic, catchy, inoffensive adult contemporary, elegantly woven around the denser, more evocative mini-worlds of the pompous 'I Call Your Name' and the dreary title track. And then, finally, the unpredictable ending: an intimate ballad, just a little acoustic guitar and a piano, with Harket crooning out the lyrics as sweetly and nonchalantly as possible.

Who knows: once the novelty of A-Ha's «classic» synth-pop era albums finally fades away along with my nostalgia-ridden generation of the Eighties, East Of The Sun may take its rightful place as the album to remember these guys by — it already sounds far more timeless than Hunting High And Low and even Scoundrel Days. In the meantime, I will do my own tiny part by adver­tising it with a straightahead thumbs up. Good, good stuff.

A-ha: Stay On These Roads

A-HA: STAY ON THESE ROADS (1988)

1) Stay On These Roads; 2) The Blood That Moves The Body; 3) Touchy!; 4) This Alone Is Love; 5) Hurry Home; 6) The Living Daylights; 7) There's Never A Forever Thing; 8) Out Of Blue Comes Green; 9) You Are The One; 10) You'll End Up Crying.

A couple listens into A-Ha's third album, I have decided to convince myself that 'Stay On These Roads' is one of the most gorgeous synth-pop ballads ever written, and one of the best pieces of evidence for the genre not being so utterly worthless. However, I do not quite understand the rea­sons that drove me to such action, and I am not even sure that I have the proper strength to per­form it.

For one thing, the «synth-pop» aspect of this song totally sucks: there have been cases when Ei­gh­ties-style adult contemporary arrangements managed to contribute to a true atmosphere of lush­ness and beauty (Enya!!!), but, by the time A-Ha's third effort rolled along, it should have been perfectly clear that their music gets progressively better when these arrangements are muted and muffled in favor of real instruments, and vice versa. 'Stay On These Roads' is no exception.

But what does work in its favor is the utterly gorgeous vocal delivery. Harket literally pulls all the stops: there is the tender falsetto, there is the towering scream, there are the hushy interludes, and there are just about all the transitional states there could be. Over and over again I wish they'd re­corded the whole thing completely acappella, or in a more «classical» style, never feeling entirely secure that the song would have benefited from that, but secretly hoping it would. My senses are too jaded and withered for the song to completely re-awaken the idealistic romantic in me, but maybe there is still some hope for those whose favourite Sixties' artist is Scott Walker (not that I dare to compare the genius of Scott with the machinery of A-Ha, but this is the exact reason why I like so much to concentrate on the vocal gift of Harket while trying very, very hard to sonically erase the surround sound from the accompanying acoustic waves).

Other than the title track, though, there is little to praise about the album. Most people know 'The Living Daylights', a fairly common synth-popper used as the title theme to one of the least suc­cessful James Bond movies ever (probably not due to A-Ha's involvement in it, but one can never tell), and some may know the other two singles — 'The Blood That Moves The Body', mid-tempo and boring, and 'Touchy!', fast and ugly. Back in 1988, they coped with their duty of stimulating the average white male's biorhythms fairly well, but today, they have been replaced with other (not always better) ways of stimulation, and seem completely useless.

Two moodier, less psychologically comfortable tracks arguably stand a better chance: 'Hurry Home' is a relatively convincing portrayal of a prodigal husband aching to make things right once again, and, likewise, the epic 'Out Of Blue Comes Green' also puts Harket in a hysterically con­fessional mood and somehow works, despite the length. Overall, I would say that «Harket the Repenting Sinner» appeals to me better than «Harket the Disney Lover» — not only because that role is less clichéd in general, but also because Harket himself seems to get into his tormented mood with more spi­rit and dedication than into his sweet and soothing one. Somehow I would not want to take a peep at the hidden corners of his soul, even if an offer were made, not even out of pure curiosity.

Thumbs down: too little of this solid enough melodically to get the same attention as Scoundrel Days, and on my Top Ten Thousand, 'Stay On These Roads' probably hits something like #9,876, if we are to strive for useless accuracy. Still, like almost every A-Ha album, it is at least listenable and shows that the band still cares for a certain degree of artistic integrity to go along with the big bucks (and even the bucks were not that big in 1988, to tell the truth).

A-ha: Scoundrel Days

A-HA: SCOUNDREL DAYS (1986)

1) Scoundrel Days; 2) The Swing Of Things; 3) I've Been Losing You; 4) October; 5) Manhattan Skyline; 6) Cry Wolf; 7) We're Looking For The Whales; 8) The Weight Of The Wind; 9) Maybe, Maybe; 10) Soft Rains Of April.

Regardless of one's overall feelings for synth pop, A-Ha's second album is a major improvement over their first in every department I can think of. The melodies are tighter and more emotional, the singing even more diverse, and, most important, the instrumentation is livelier — no longer are we pursued by synth loops on every corner, as real guitars steal part of their thunder, real strings arrangements sometimes arrogantly tread upon the sacred turf of «heavenly synths», and real, non-robotic drumming from actual drummers nurtures our souls on no less than four out of ten tracks! Now this is what I call good news.

In all honesty, Scoundrel Days is one of the highest points of the «New Romantic» movement. Its closing song may be erroneously called 'Soft Rains Of April', but its overall mood is decidedly autumnal (plenty of rain, though): a shade of elegant depression and desperation spread over ur­banistic landscapes. 'Manhattan Skyline' is a great title — most of the time, Harket truly sounds like he is singing from the top of a skyscraper, spreading his vibes throughout the city. But the safety harness is in its due place: A-Ha are not the Cure, and the sadness they sow is never suici­dal: you know for sure that, once the show is over, Harket is not jumping, but taking the elevator back to the ground floor's restaurant, for some champagne and caviar to soothe the aching heart.

With that reservation in mind, it is still not a crime to enjoy this mood and at least some of the songs that go along with it. On the title track, Harket goes into full-blown Bryan Ferry mode, and if only he had a clone of Eno and another of Manzanera to go along, together they could have re­created the magic of Roxy Music's Avalon; as things stand, this is a cruder, but still dramatic ex­perience, and the strings are a beautiful antidote for the generic keyboards. So is the melancholic brass backing for 'October', which, along with Harket's hushed vocals, makes me forget the silly pssht-pssht of the accompanying electronic percussion.

The upbeat, danceable singles — 'The Swing Of Things' and 'Cry Wolf' — are at least hardly any worse than concurrent Duran Duran hits; in fact, 'Cry Wolf' is probably the greatest hit Duran Du­ran ever missed writing, and 'The Swing' places Harket squarely back into David Bowie mood, with excellent results. The only serious misstep here is the overtly cutesy, ska-influenced 'May­be, Maybe' — two minutes of unnecessary schoolgirl sissiness that nearly ruins the atmosphere they had been so carefully constructing for the previous eight songs.

Fortunately, they then come back to their senses and end the record with one of their very best ballads — 'Soft Rains Of April', every second of which is meticulously calculated, but to great effect. Synth loops are almost drowned out by ominously synthesized orchestration, and Harket is hero again, going from a dreamy, «progressive» delivery on the vocals to a poppier chorus before abruptly ending it all with a gorgeous breathy 'over!' that sort of leaves you wishing it weren't over so soon. Not the kind of wish I would normally expect from an A-Ha album, but there it is.

It is only too sad that, today, most people will probably dismiss Scoundrel Days as just one more generic synth pop atavism, without giving its sophisticated textures the proper attention they de­serve. Hardly fair; there is no reason for a world that worships Frank Sinatra to forget about Mor­ten Harket. Or is there? Follow my thumbs up and then decide for yourself.

A-ha: Hunting High And Low

A-HA: HUNTING HIGH AND LOW (1985)

1) Take On Me; 2) Train Of Thought; 3) Hunting High And Low; 4) The Blue Sky; 5) Living A Boy's Adventure; 6) The Sun Always Shines On T.V.; 7) And You Tell Me; 8) Love Is Reason; 9) I Dream Myself Alive; 10) Here I Stand And Face The Rain.

For some reason, it is quite psychologically daunting to look back on the Golden Age of Synth-Pop and make a conscious attempt to stratify the chaff and the wheat. Somehow the gap between the likes of, say, Depeche Mode, with their clear interest in expanding the borders of the genre and using it to explore man's dark side, and, for instance, Modern Talking (a.k.a. «The Black Pla­gue of Eastern Europe» in the 1980s) always seems narrower and more bridgeable than a super­ficially similar gap between the likes of the Beatles and the Dave Clark 5, or Thin Lizzy and Fo­rei­g­ner, or Mötley Crüe and Guns'n'Roses.

Perhaps it has something to do with the instrumental minimalism displayed by all parties con­cerned (just how many classic synth pop melodies sound as if it took one cheap key­board and one finger to play them?), or by the common shared ugliness of the genre's obligatory requirements, such as electronic percussion etc. Most likely, people raised and reared on the genre will not ag­ree, but their generation (my generation, to be sure) is a cursed one in any case, and their opinions on the matter value about as much as an oil magnate's opinions on alternate sources of energy.

A-Ha (more correctly, a-ha with no capitals, but this looks horrid in printed text, so I will allow myself the sacrilege of capitalization) — Norway's pride and joy, and one of the major factors in the prolongation of the average lifespan of Norwegian population — probably symbolize the art of unpretentious synth-pop better than any other 1980s band. Without infringing on the gloomy Freudian territory of Depeche Mode, or on the decadent cosmic synth-rock turf of Duran Duran, they still manage to sound similar to both — and present a viable alternative for those who want their dance beats simple and stupid, and their mood elegant and romantic with no oddities. Is this awful? Is this beautiful? I don't know.

The music is definitely not very exciting. The trio of A-Ha does include a guitarist, Paul Waak­taar, but Hunting High And Low, the band's debut, does not ever let us hear him in full flight, since he seems to mostly be busy providing acoustic backdrops that are «felt rather than heard». He is, however, the principal songwriter for the band, which makes him the principal accused. Keyboardist Mags Furuholmen is responsible for the overall sound — one finger on the keyboard, remember — and then there is the band's biggest surface attraction, singer Morten Harket, the one destined to reap the biggest female harvest.

In all honesty, Harket is a great singer. Listen to 'Train Of Thought' and you might think, like me: 'Gee, I had no idea David Bowie could sell out to that extent!' But then listen to 'Take On Me' and you will think: 'Say, since when did James Taylor develop that kind of falsetto?' And it is not like Morten is consciously imitating anyone: he simply has an excellent range and is in perfect com­mand of his cords, and all the different moods go off quite smoothly. In conjunction with strong melodic hooks (vocal hooks) of Take On Me', 'The Blue Sky', 'Living A Boy's Adventure' and a few other songs, this definitely gives A-Ha an edge, and explains their huge commercial success better than any other reason. I freely and openly admit that some of these songs are prime exam­ples of the most gorgeous singing in synth-pop history.

Alas, if only the music were up to par. There is not a single track on the record that would whis­per "hey, what an interesting, original musical decision" in my ear. Without Harket's contributi­ons, all of this would go down the drain immediately: no complex riffs, no non-trivial arrange­ment touches, just a bunch of generic keyboard loops, drum machines, and «heavenly» keyboard effects to prove that Harket, like a true knight of the synth-pop order, is singing down to his wor­shippers from the faraway Electronic Temple on Casio Mountain. Predictable.

So, apparently, Hunting High And Low will not be appreciated in years to come as much as it has been appreciated upon immediate release, making the band a permanent chart presence and MTV's prime time darlings. But it still works well as an inspiring testament to the abilities of the human voice, and, for that reason, I give it neither a definitive thumbs up nor a decisive thumbs down — this would depend on whether I am in the mood for some great singing, or for some very, very crappy synthesizer loops.