Scoundrel Days - A-Ha

I'm continuing my poke through my record collection with another offering from Norwegian legends a-ha. _Scoundrel Days_ was a-ha's "difficult" second album. It was a move away from their "synth pop" reputation after _Hunting High and Low_, and was perhaps a bit of a shock for their teenage fans, but at ten years old I was too young to be disappointed. I loved it. I held long scarves in my hands and danced, with an abandon that can only be described ...
...album, and it's probably the reason why, by the time I was a teenager, I was into rock and metal. Luckily since then I've realised I'm a TERRIBLE dancer. In a highly unscientific poll (a search through my memory to remember the opinions of fellow a-ha fans over the years) the vast majority of a-ha fans named _SD_ as their favourite ever a-ha album. It's certainly the one I'd want on a desert island, and it's the "classic" a-ha album they play the ...

anaglypta 31.03.2008 (01.04.2008) · Read full review
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Review of Scoundrel Days - A-Ha

...had appeared, the second - Scoundrel Days - arrived on the back of their most adventurous release to date - I've Been Losing You. Another dark and brooding affair, it completely ditched the perky, synthesized feel of their previous work. Mature beyond their recording years, it was an extraordinary single to issue at the time. Perhaps slightly confused and bewildered, the public didn't quite warm to its charms. It made #8 before swiftly dropping down ...
...representative of the accompanying album. Scoundrel Days was far from a quantum leap forwards, yet - as on I've Been Losing You - it hinted at a darker, deeper aesthetic and emotional landscape. Both the title cut and The Weight Of the Wind returned to the style first evidenced on The Sun Always Shines.., while October and The Soft Rains Of April touched upon a more ethereal ambience. Again comprising 10 tracks, only the rather throwaway Maybe Maybe ...

EnglishPatient 02.08.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Scoundrel Days - A-Ha

....was just having a rummage through all my old Aha stuff and came across TWO copies of this album! Must have been keen!! It was produced in 1986..and is a cracker!! More atmospheric than the more poppy Hunting High and Low..and definately more rocking! All the songs are written by (most produced by) Mags and Pal (who also seems to have changed to Paul of late..). There are the trademark little chirpy numbers that bounce along (usually written by ...
...knew that it was over when you chucked me out the Rover'...ahem..But the best track has got to be..'Ive Been Losing You'..watch out for the 'pretend' ending, it fooled many a dj when it was a single. Its completely rocking and a rival to The Sun Always Shines on TV. Cry Wolf (wooo...oooo)...is a catchy one that will have you..er...wooo...ooo-ing along! Altogether, a brilliantly produced album although very eighties in its origins, listening now you ...

JoannaC 17.10.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Scoundrel Days - A-Ha

These three chaps from the colder parts of Scandinavia may have once been regarded as little more than leather-thong wearing teen idols, but posterity and reflection now combine to draw us to the conclusion that they were musically way ahead of their time - indeed, perhaps musically somehow beyond time itself. "Scoundrel Days" must be the very apex of some early burst of super-symmetry. Beside the untold potency of the title track, and the strangely ...
...scatting of undiscovered joys - "The Soft Rains of April" rhymes "Dover" and "over" without the slightest hint of irony, and the great pivotal final word of the song, uttered in a slightly mannered, unaccompanied style, is oddly monastic in its incantation. "Looking for the whales" needs to be reinvented as "Looking for the Wales"; "Maybe Maybe", containing lyrics such as "Maybe you were joking when you chucked me out the Rover at full speed", is ...

saundej 28.07.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Scoundrel Days - A-Ha