10 Fun Facts About the Norwegian Band A-ha
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Loading... - Allen Anderson
- 15 Mar 2022
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Depending on your age, your may not be aware of legendary Norwegian pop group A-ha. But it’s not a huge stretch to say that absolutely everyone has heard their biggest hit, Take On Me, at least once.
Although their popularity peaked in the 1980s, the band remain popular to this day. Lead singer Morten Harket remains one of the most recognisable faces in Norwegian music.
Are you ready for a walk down memory lane? We’ve compiled a list of fun facts about the trio for your enjoyment.
Even if you’re an A-ha fan, you might actually learn a thing or two. If you don’t know them, you now have a golden opportunity to learn all about the most popular and successful pop group ever to come out of Norway.
They produced one of the most iconic animated music videos of all time
The music video for Take On Me was not the first animated music video. That honour goes to Elvis Costello and the Attractions who released Accidents Will Happen, already in 1979.
The 80s saw other artists such as The Rolling Stones and Paula Abdul release partially or fully animated music videos. But A-ha’s Take On Me is undoubtedly among the most iconic.
It was spoofed many times (notably in animated sitcom Family Guy) and was only the fifth music video in history to reach one billion views on YouTube.
They wrote a song especially for a James Bond film
When James Bond producers picked a band to write the theme song for their 1987 offering titled The Living Daylights, their choice fell on A-ha. The band wrote their song of the same title for the movie.
The song seems to have received mixed reviews from Bond fans. A top-list of James Bond theme songs published by Rolling Stone magazine ranks The Living Daylights 20th on a list of 22. Ouch!
MTV predicted A-ha’s success
Predicted, recognised or engineered… the truth is probably somewhere in between the three.
In an era where there was no online streaming service constantly keeping everyone up to date about the popularity of every song in existence, awards nominations were arguably even more relevant than they are today.
In 1986, MTV nominated A-ha for a whopping 11 awards, of which the band won 8. If you’re curious to know what an award show looked like back then.
They are knights! Actual knights!
Okay so not the shining armor, horse riding, damsel-in-distress-saving kind of knight, but Knights of the 1st Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav. All three members of the band were awarded the title in 2012 for their contribution to Norwegian music.
The name A-ha was originally destined for a song
Paul Waaktaar-Savoy wrote a song titled a-ha, and when Morten Harket saw the word written in a notebook, he declared it a great name, and suggested the band should call themselves that.
The pair consulted dictionaries in several languages and found out that the word was in every single one of them.
According to Morten Harket, the song of the same name was “terrible”. Read More…
