I have decided to review another a-ha album again much sooner than I planned after I saw this fine Greatest Hits album for a measly £3! In ASDA, if you're curious. It appears that it has been "remaindered" or whatever it is happens to CDs that makes them end up in bargain sections of supermarkets. So, if you don't own this album, and like top-notch popular music, I would strongly recommend you cast your eye over the CD section in your local hypermarket. It was released in 1991, and so the most recent song on there is Move to Memphis. But I'm sure that these songs will be the most familiar to people who aren't already hardcore a-ha fans, and for that reason, it's probably the best place to start if you are at all interested in rediscovering these (far too often neglected) Norwegian pop gods.

I like a-ha because they have a very finely tuned pop sensibilities but still ROCK. At their best, they produce epic songs that are either pop-that-rocks or rock-that-is-pop, with the added bonus of deeply soulful moments that always avoid being mawkish and are never self-pitying. They have provided the musical backdrop to my life, essentially-- and as their style evolves, they have grown up with me. Their poppier phase suited my pre-pubescent desires, and as their sound matured, so did I. I may not be the most truly epic of a-ha fans, in that I'm not an a-ha stalker, one of the front three rows of every gig the band themselves have said they recognise at every gig, who are all generally a few years older than me and would have been a teeanger in the mid 80's, but I'm sure that a-ha have a deeper resonance for me because I matured in sync with a-ha and I have always held their music almost as a sacred thing, the harmonious background to the chaos of my life.

4. You Are The One (Remix)

A return to a rockier feel for this one, a memorable song from their "longer hair" stage. It would be better, I think, if they'd rocked out even more, and shown up Jon Bon Jovi and his chums for being the Bros-in-fright-wigs that they were (that's not to say I don't like Bon Jovi). But it rocks, and has funky, almost Prince-ish guitars and a powerful bassline. Not Morten's most exciting vocal effort, it was a standalone single, released two years before the studio album it was released on, and I think that shows, a bit. Odd singles tend to let the side down a bit, for many bands (another example of this phenomenon is The Prodigy's Baby's Got a Temper, and this is definitely better than that.) I give it 8.5/10.

Apparently in the making of this song, for which they worked with Bond composer John Barry, there was a falling out. Paul later went onto claim that Barry had had little creative input; I have no idea how true this is, but it's certainly true that there are two versions of this song, the single version and a-ha's favoured version, found on the Stay on These Roads album and it's also very true that as far as Bond themes go, this is a stand-out song as its rather different in feel than other Bond themes. It being the theme song made me watch the move, and I really liked it, despite not really liking Bond films previously. This song suits Timothy Dalton's Bond; it's moody, serious, and sexy without being morbid or silly, and like Dalton's Bond, a-ha are seriously under-rated. I reckon it's worth 8.5 of anyone's 10 points.

This song is truly, in my book anyway, the best song of the 1980s. It is better than Take On Me, and quite rightly got to number 1 in the charts in the UK (_Take On Me_ got to number 2, kept off the top spot by Midge Ure, if I remember correctly). It's an epic, guitar driven pop masterpiece, which starts slowly with a simpler keyboard line, which is then joined by Morten's vocals for a deceptively spartan verse.... then the "violins" and guitar kick in and it all becomes something timeless, truly, a song that transcends both its era of the 1980s and its nominal genre of "pop". I would say that it is this song, far more than Take On Me, that defines what a-ha are all about. I can't give this song too many points, it really is without peer. There is no other "pop" song of the 1980s that has the depth, skill and intelligence this song does. This is not my favourite a-ha song for emotional reasons, but it is definitely my second favourite and technically and musically the best. It would be one of my Desert Island Discs, for sure. The disjointed phrasing of the lyrics reflect the themes of the song, which I've tried to reflect in my breakup of the lyric sample:

As you might have guessed, I love a-ha and I'm not ashamed to be evangelical about it. But I also do genuinely think that they are one of the most under-rated bands ever, in the minds of the "general public", at least; they have always been very highly rated by other musicians. I noticed that at the concert at the Shepherd's Bush Empire a couple of years ago that the crowd split into men and women; women down the front, men (who mostly appeared to be partners of the women down the front) at the bar. I was kind of half way, as a courtesy to the chap who was accompanying me, hehe. But I also noticed that the men up the back were enjoying it as much as their womenfolk down the front, who would have been besotted since they were teenagers. Not in a girly squealy way of course, but there was a lot of foot tapping and watching of the band, and even a little sly singing along to Take On Me and The Sun Always Shines On TV was observed. The fans ranged in age, although most of the women there were older than me there were also many much younger, which surprised me.