And so, EnglishPatient - as a standalone entity - is no more. This account will self-destruct within...
And so, EnglishPatient - as a standalone entity - is no more. This account will self-destruct within approximately 24 hours. I can now be found under the name of DoubleTrouble - a collaboration with fellow Ciao user Broksababe. See you there!
Member since:30.07.2000
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A-ha first made their mark on the public consciousness with 1985's Take On Me, courtesy of a stupendously inventive promo video that merged live action with what can best be described as a "moving pencil sketch" effect.
The rather photogenic lead singer was "trapped" in a comic-book world, until he literally pulled a young blonde lady from her cafe chair as she read the pages in front of her, dragging the poor girl into his nightmarish existence. The juxtaposition of the real and sketched action was breathtaking and utterly memorable.
That the accompanying track was a nifty piece of 80s synth pop - complete with a endearingly foreign line in lyrics (Take On Me, rather than Take Me On") - only served to etch the whole thing even more indeliably on the brain. The single went on to reach #2 on the UK charts in the Autumn of 1985.
The history of pop music is littered with one-hit wonders, and acts that never quite repeated their initial success. In the case of A-ha, any such misgivings were swiftly avoided when the follow-up single stormed to #1 in January 1986. The Sun Always Shines On T.V. was a truly epic piece - an intense, bludgeoning track with a thrilling keyboard riff and some urgent guitar work thrown in for good measure. Lyrically almost overwraught yet somehow managing to remain convincingly desolate and desperate, how such a complex record ever made it to the top of the mid 80s UK Singles Chart is still something of a mystery.
The Hunting High And Low album followed an identical trajectory, shaking off a slow start by moving 50-14-2 during The Sun Always Shines On TV's reign at #1. A perfectly-formed collection of tuneful, atmospheric songs with the distinctive vocals of Morten Harkett taking even the most workaday lyric to a higher plane. Blue Sky, Living A Boy's Adventure Tale and Here I Stand And Face The Rain presented a range to the band's abilities and musical ambitions that nobody could surely have been expecting. Clocking in at 10 tracks and 37 minutes, it's an excellent reminder of a time when the freedom of CD had yet to alter how artists approached the recording and editing processes.
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Hunting High & Low, A-ha's first and biggest selling album, contains four UK top ten hits, ... more
including "Take On Me" and "The Sun Always Shines On TV", their only number one hit, which sold 500,000 copies in the UK alone. Arguably the last in a generation...
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Hunting High&Low, A-ha's first and biggest selling album, contains four UK top ten hits, ... more
including "Take On Me" and "The Sun Always Shines On TV", their only number one hit, which sold 500,000 copies in the UK alone. Arguably the last in a generation o...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
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