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Autumn is an evocative season in the history of a-ha, and that is not merely a matter of historical sentiment. It's also about their lives right now. This is a time of year of creative landmarks for the most successful musical property to arise from Norway — and it continues right up to this minute, with the release in the fall of 2005 of Analogue, a-ha's eighth studio album, and a worldwide tour.
Analog Album Cover
Yes, it arrives on the back of some fresh summertime memories too: of playing the Live8 concert in Berlin and then summoning reportedly the biggest public gathering in Norwegian history in Frognerparken in Oslo in late August, "just us and 120,000 of our closest friends," as Magne Furuholmen puts it. All that, echoing to the endorsements of the a-ha cataogue by such notables as Chris Martin and Robbie Williams.
But the new album and tour also arrive exactly 20 years since a-ha topped the Billboard Hot 100 and conquered the pop globe with Take On Me, before setting out to show that was merely the top layer in a complex and sophisticated collective. As friends, musicians, stars and human beings, they've been to the moon and back since. Analogue is their new field report, and don't call it a happy ending because a-ha is, as ever, a work in progress, and a fascinating one at that.
Bridges Album Cover
You can tick off the timelines for yourself. Autumn 1980, Furuholmen and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy present their first record to the world (or at least a very tiny percentage of the world) as members of a band called Bridges. Autumn 1983, with Morten Harket installed as frontman of the trio to be known forevermore as a-ha, they land a worldwide record deal with Warner Brothers.
Autumn '85, "Take On Me" becomes not only their anthem but practically a theme tune for '80s pop itself, underpinned by the debut album Hunting High and Low. Autumn ‘86, its famed and undying promo clip wins four titles at the MTV Video Music Awards, and a-ha begin to carve a life outside its clutches, releasing the predominantly self-produced sophomore album Scoundrel Days.
By the fall of 1990, they rack up their 13th top 30 single in a row in the UK, the "second home" where they'd served pre-fame apprenticeship. This season in ‘94, an unannounced, five-year band hiatus is opening the safety valve to individual expression. Come '98, a-ha are confirming a reunion that led to 2000's Minor Earth, Major Sky and on to 2002's Lifelines.
a-ha Artwork
That's a deliberately quickfire flick through a-ha's past, simply because their present is too vital. You get the picture the minute you play Analogue. Certainly, they've changed and matured in two decades in the public glare, and sure, there are distinct and disparate creative forces pushing and pulling the record this way and that.
But that's the exciting thing: that Morten, Magne and Paul have focused their energies on the positive tensions of making a great new record, in a new label environment. From the first single, the simultaneously icy and embracing "Celice", to instant, undeniable pieces like "Analogue" and "Halfway Through The Tour", to the reflective, delicate "Keeper" of the "Flame" and one of their own favourites, the sophisticated "Cozy Prison", it's an album that walks new ground but is, utterly and incontrovertibly, a-ha.
About time we let them explain it. "What we bring to the band now," says Magne, "are the strengths that we've built up individually, back into the mix, and it creates a whole different dynamic. On the last two albums, the internal struggles have almost been the focus of our musical direction. Now I feel we've made a much clearer, more cohesive album, where we're ready to bring the band to a new place together."
"It feels very different," agrees Morten. "We're signed to Universal now, it's new to us and that has an effect on a number of things. In a way you get a chance to start all over. Between the three of us, we're in a process of change that we're somewhere in the midst of. There are so many variables between the three of us that are essentially strong assets, but they have to freely come into play."
Solo Projesct Album Covers
Paul picks up on that theme of "starting over" after their most recent individual projects (he with wife Lauren in the group Savoy, and Harket and Furuholmen with solo releases). "I think we emptied out a lot of material, so we had to start from scratch for this album," he says.
"The last one turned very scattered, because you had so many different producers and different chefs. On this album we tried to avoid that by going with one guy [producer Martin Terefe]. Also we had a great time mixing with Flood, I've been a huge fan of most of the stuff he's done before [Smashing Pumpkins, U2, PJ Harvey, Depeche Mode et al]."
In the band's great tradition, "Celice" is also attracting plenty of attention for a very notable video. So notable, in fact, that its explicit detail is making some television schedulers nervous. It was filmed in part in a Berlin brothel, with the ingenious aid of a heatseeking camera. "It's a strong idea, with little visual anecdotes of people in various stages of entanglement and isolation," says Magne. "It's mainly a performance video, but we all feel we could have done a real good acting job in this one if we'd been asked," he deadpans.
"'Celice' was written more like a suicide ballad, almost," says Furuholmen. "I wasn't sure I was going to submit it for this record, then Martin Terefee said ‘This song's a hit, we've just got to do it in an uptempo version.' He came back with a sketch for it and it completely changed my perception of the song. The lyric is quite dark and hard, but the way he perceived it, it became a double-edged thing, like an uptempo poppy thing. I think a-ha's always hard, dark subjects. [The 1986 hit] "I've Been Losing You" is kind of a murder song."
The retro nature of the album title is part of a process of incorporating history into their future. Especially for a group that was suddenly swept up in a tornado of fan mania, glossy tabloid intrusion and, ultimately, misinterpretation of their musical identity.
Band Photo
"In the first year," says Morten, "it was difficult for us to gauge what we were doing, to know how it came across. We appeared somewhere and got our picture taken, not even noticing that the background was pink. You come out very differently to how you see yourself. We were seen as teen idols, and we had no interest in any of that. It had so little to do with what we were there for."
"We were less inclined to guide our career then," recalls Paul. "We kind of showed up and did whatever was asked. It was such a high, coming from Norway and getting a foot in the door, we weren't staking out a direction."
"We always as a band felt we had our integrity, in spite of being faced with the hysteria around the band in the first few years," says Magne. "Any band that has a career trajectory of our type, of having a huge first single that becomes such a defining moment in your career, rather than paying your dues before you have success, you pay your dues in the wake of it."
The tour, which in September included the band's first US date in nearly 20 years, features songs from Analogue alongside a wealth of a-ha hits, played with a refreshed and refreshing attitude.
"We've come back to our own history and re-examined it differently, a bit more in celebration than what we've done before," says Magne. "That comes not only with time passing, but having done so many different things. It charges your psychic battery and brings a new dynamic into the group."
That's the secret to what happens next in a-ha, and like their legions of fans, they're excited about the sense of perspective. "It's been a lot easier for us because we are just who we are today," says Morten. "I like the fact that we are about something a little different. What I find interesting about life is the ever-changing mood, and that nothing really can stay the same, you have to play with it and respond. This can be a very interesting line of work to be in."
