A-Ha

a-ha (normally spelled entirely in lower-case) are a rock/pop music band from Norway. The band was founded in 1982 by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy (guitars), Magne Furuholmen (keyboards), and Morten Harket (vocals). The group initially rose to fame during the mid 1980s and has had continued global success in the 1990s and 2000s. According to their official website, they have sold over 35 million albums worldwide plus a double million figure in singles, making them the best-selling Norwegian music act in history.

a-ha achieved its biggest success with their debut album, Hunting High and Low, in 1985, which peaked at no.1 in their native Norway, no.2 in the UK and no.15 on the U.S. Billboard ^{Billboard (magazine)} album chart and yielded two international number-one singles, "Take on Me" and "The Sun Always Shines on T.V.", earning the band a Grammy Award nomination as Best New Artist. In the UK, Hunting High and Low was one of the best-selling albums of 1986. In 1994, after their fifth studio album, the band went on a hiatus ^Wikt:hiatus . After a performance at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 1998, the band returned to the studio and recorded their sixth studio album, 2000's Minor Earth Major Sky, which was another no.1 in Norway and resulted in a new tour. In 2002 the band released their seventh studio album, Lifelines. Their eighth album, Analogue ^{Analogue (album)} , was released in 2005 and was certified Silver in the UK - their most successful album there since 1990's East of the Sun, West of the Moon.On 19 October the tour's name was announced as Ending On A High Note.

 
Formation

The trio ^{trio (music)} —composed of lead vocalist Morten Harket; guitarist Paul Waaktaar-Savoy (previously known as Pål Waaktaar until 1994); and keyboardist Magne Furuholmen (informally known as "Mags"), formed in 1982 and left Norway for London in order to make a career in the music business. They chose the studio of musician, producer, and soon-to-be-manager John Ratcliff because it had a Space Invaders machine. John Ratcliff introduced them to his manager, Terry Slater, and after a few meetings, a-ha enlisted Ratcliff as manager too. Slater and Ratcliff formed T.J. Management. Ratcliff dealt with technical and musical aspects, and Slater acted as the group's international business manager and as liaison to Warner Brothers's head office in Los Angeles.

The origin of the name "a-ha" comes from a title that Waaktaar contemplated giving to a song. The song used the words "a-ha" and "ahem". Harket was looking through Waaktaar's notebook and came across the name "a-ha". He liked it and said, "That's a great name. That's what we should call ourselves". After checking dictionaries in several languages, they found out that a-ha was an international way of expressing recognition, with positive connotations. It was short, easy to say, and unusual.


Hunting High and Low (1984–1985)

An early version of "Take on Me" was the first song that Morten Harket heard Magne Furuholmen and Pål Waaktaar play in Asker. At that time, the song was called "The Juicy Fruit Song", and the two men were still known as Bridges. It was named "Lesson One" when it was first recorded by a-ha. After some rewriting, multiple re-recordings, and three releases, "Take on Me" became a hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1985 and was the second-best-selling single of 1985 . The first version of the song, released in 1984, was promoted by a now-rare video of the band performing the song in front of a blue background. The song was then re-recorded with production by Alan Tarney, but both of these released failed to chart. It was then re-released with a new, groundbreaking video and ultimately sold 1.5 million copies worldwide in one week. Eventually, the single "Take on Me" was estimated to have sold 7 / 9 million copies worldwide; it peaked at number 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and at number 2 on the UK Singles Chart. It became one of the most instantly recognizable and most enduringly popular music videos in the U.S., where it was nominated for eight awards at the third annual MTV Video Awards in 1986, winning six, including Best New Artist in a Video, Best Concept Video, Best Direction, Best Special Effects, and Viewer's Choice. "Take on Me" was also nominated for Best Video of the Year at the 1986 American Music Awards. Their six MTV Award wins for that video gave them twice as many wins as Michael Jackson's "Thriller ^{Michael Jackson's Thriller} " and more than any artist in the three years of the awards combined.

But those were not a-ha's only MTV awards that year. The band's second single was "The Sun Always Shines on T.V.". In the U.S., the song peaked at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached number 17 on Radio & Records airplay chart. A remix version was a club hit, rising to number 5 on the Hot Dance Singles Sales chart. Hunting High and Low has sold 11 million copies worldwide. The album peaked at number 15 in the U.S., according to Billboard music charts, and has sold about 1.8 million copies in the U.S. It peaked at number 2 on the UK charts, and it spent 38 weeks in the top 10 in Norway, including 8 weeks at number 1.


Golden Age (1985–1994)

in 2007
a-ha's second album, Scoundrel Days, was released in the midst of the 1986 world tour and represented a move towards alternative rock, as synthpop began to fall out of style. Although the album received favorable reviews and sent three singles to become international radio hits, the album's sales did not match those of its predecessor (except for Switzerland, where it is a-ha's best-selling album). "Cry Wolf" would be the last a-ha single to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. After the release of the album, a-ha went to tour in the U.S., its last appearance there for 20 years. The album has sold 6.4 million copies worldwide, has been certified platinum in the UK and Switzerland, and has been certified gold in Germany and Brazil. Ned Raggett of AllMusic Guide would later write of the album, "The opening two songs alone make for one of the best one-two opening punches around: the tense edge of the title track, featuring one of Morten Harket's soaring vocals during the chorus and a crisp, pristine punch in the music, and 'The Swing of Things,' a moody, elegant number with a beautiful synth/guitar arrangement (plus some fine drumming courtesy of studio pro Michael Sturgis) and utterly lovelorn lyrical sentiments that balance on the edge of being overheated without quite going over...The '80s may be long gone, but Scoundrel Days makes clear that not everything was bad back then."

In May 1988, a-ha released their third studio album, titled Stay On These Roads, which matched the number-2 chart peak of its two predecessors on the British album charts. Stay on These Roads became a big hit and is now the best-selling a-ha album in Brazil, where it is certified platinum. The album has been certified gold in Switzerland, Germany, UK, and the Netherlands.
"East of the Sun, West of the Moon" was certified gold in Switzerland, Brazil, and Germany and was certified silver in the UK. They also performed "The Sun Always Shines on TV." This performance was a-ha's comeback into the world of music, yet the band's set was controversially omitted from a programme of highlights from that concert televised in the UK. Nevertheless, the band returned to the studio. Those recording sessions resulted in 2000's "Minor Earth Major Sky", an international tour, and a webcast performance of the band opening the new Vallhall Arena ^{Coca Cola Vallhall Arena} in Oslo on the 24 and 25 March 2001. The webcast was the third most-viewed webcast concert ever with 3.6 million hits, along with the longest average viewing time—28 minutes. Only webcasts by Madonna ^{Madonna (entertainer)} and Paul McCartney recorded more hits. a-ha's video for "I Wish I Cared" was the first fully web-based animated flash music video to be made available. The album reached platinum sales, with sales of 2.5 million copies and spawned four #1 hits: "Minor Earth Major Sky," "Velvet," "The Sun Never Shone That Day" and "Summer Moved On." "Summer Moved On" is notable not only for going to #1 in 17 countries, but for earning Morten Harket a world record for the longest note held in a UK hit song, at twenty seconds. With the music video for the song "Velvet," a-ha received criticism for flirting with necrophilia. Paul ^{Paul Waaktaar-Savoy} has said of the comeback album, "We made a demo very quickly and intuitively, and that gave us the contract. But then we were at the next stage: is it a record? There wasn't any panic, it was only about the final most difficult fractions, coming up with the finishing touch. In fact, some of the songs were untouched since New York. I think we did a good job."

a-ha made a return appearance at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 2001. The subsequent album "Lifelines", which was released in 2002, went platinum in Norway and produced two Top 5 hits, "Forever Not Yours" and "Lifelines ^{Lifelines (song)} ". Jesper Hiro directed the video for "Lifelines" which was originally 12 minutes long. The end result shows a whole year passing by in one shot at 50 000 times the normal speed. The art film on which it was based, "A Year Along the Abandoned Road," was directed by Morten Skallerud in 1991.

A live album from their 2002 tour, titled "How Can I Sleep with Your Voice in My Head", was released in March 2003, preceded by a live single of the 1986 hit "The Sun Always Shines on TV." In 2004, a book entitled "The Swing of Things" was published, which also featured a CD of early demo material. That year a-ha celebrated their twentieth anniversary with the release of a new singles collection, "The Definitive Singles Collection 1984–2004". This compilation brought them back into the UK Top 20 Album Charts, where they reached number thirteen and earned a Gold album.

On 2 July 2005, a-ha performed at the Berlin edition of Live 8, in front of an audience of nearly 200,000 people. They began with "Hunting High and Low", followed by "Take on Me", however Morten Harket had difficulties hearing himself and requested a two-minute break, which he used to comment on the cause of Live 8. The intended two minutes became almost seven, and the third song, "Summer Moved On," became the last of their set. Although four songs had been rehearsed, the band's time had run out and the organizers told them to leave the stage.

live at Cologne, 29 October 2005
On 12 September 2005, a-ha played a quickly-sold-out show at Irving Plaza in New York City, the band's first concert in North America since 1986. The band has not returned to North America since, nor have they released anything there since 1993. On 27 August 2005, the band played a concert for 120,000 people in Frogner Park in Oslo, the largest concert ever in Norway.

On 4 November 2005, the band released its 8th studio album, "Analogue ^{Analogue (album)} ". The UK release of the single "Analogue (All I Want)" gave a-ha their first top ten hit in the UK since 1988.. The band collaborated with successful producer Steve Osborne, who has produced albums for such artists as New Order, Starsailor ^{Starsailor (band)} , Doves ^{Doves (band)} , Elbow ^{Elbow (band)} , and U2 ^{U2 (band)} . "What There Is", an earlier solo track by Magne Furuholmen, aka "Mags (2)", was re-recorded for the album.
Foot of the Mountain entered the German album chart at #1, the UK album chart at #5 8.

"I feel more connected to Depeche Mode (compared with other acts of the 80s)," claimed Magne Furuholmen. a-ha performed a cover of "A Question of Lust" during a live performance for BBC Radio 2 - The Dermot O'Leary Show ^{Dermot O'Leary} on 25 July 2009.

a-ha headlined the iTunes Live festival on 24 July 2009. The lineup for the festival also includes Simple Minds, Oasis, Snow Patrol, Franz Ferdinand, Kasabian and The Saturdays. All the performances were recorded and made available for download on the iTunes site as with the previous festivals. In the Norwegian iTunes store a-ha's release has yet to see the light of day.

On 15 October 2009, the band announced they are to split after a worldwide concert tour in 2010. The same day, their final concert was announced to take place in Oslo, Norway, at the Oslo Spektrum arena 4 December 2010, with ticket sales starting the next day. The concert sold out the first day on sale. On 19 October 2009, a second farewell show was announced to be given on 3 December 2010After the successful release of the single "Take On Me", the band was nominated for the Best New Artist Grammy Award in 1986 but did not win; the band have never been Grammy-nominated since. a-ha has also won eight MTV Video Music Awards, for "Take On Me" and "The Sun Always Shines on T.V.". "Take On Me" won six of these awards while the other two went to "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." A-ha has also won eight Spellemannprisen awards, the Norwegian equivalent of the Grammy awards.
Studio albums
As of November 2009, a-ha have held 488 concerts around the world.

a-ha have toured in: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom and the United States.

* 'Hunting High and Low Tour' 1986–1987 (USA, Europe, Australia & Japan)
* 'Stay On These Roads Tour' 1988–1989 (Europe, Japan and South America)
* 'Walk Under the Sun Dance Under the Moon Tour' 1991 (South America)
* 'East of the Sun West of the Moon Tour' 1991 (Europe)
* 'Memorial Beach Tour' 1993–1994 (Europe, South Africa & Lebanon)
* 'Minor Earth Major Sky Tour' 2000–2001 (Japan, Russia & Europe)
* 'Lifelines Tour' 2002–2004 (Europe, Brazil & Russia)
* 'Analogue Tour' 2005–2007 (Europe, Russia, USA, Senegal & Chile)
* 'Foot Of The Mountain Tour' 2009 (Europe, South America and Japan) * 'Ending On A High Note Tour' 2010 ( Europe, USA and Canada and South America )




a-ha has on tour, been backed up by various musicians, including some of the very best studio and touring musicians in Norway and Scandinavia. Most of them have also been involved in studio with a-ha.
* Leif Karsten Johansen (Bass player) - 1986–1987
* Mike Sturgis (Drums) - 1986–1987
* Dag Kolsrud (Keyboards) - 1986–1987
* Ian Wherry (keyboard) - 1988–1989
* Randy Hope-Taylor (Bass) - 1988–1989
* Matthew Lettley (Drums) - 1988–1989
* Danny***ol (Percussion) - 1988–1989
* Jørun Bøgeberg (Bass) - 1991–1994
* Per Hillestad (Drums) - 1991–1994
* Sigurd (Siggy) Køhn (Saxophone) - 1991–1994
* Øyvind Madsen (Bass) - Africa leg of tour 1994
* Sven Lindvall (Bass)- 2000–2007
* Per Lindvall (Drums)- 2000–2007
* Krister Karlsson (Keyboard)- 2000–2007
* Anneli Drecker (Backing vocals / Duet partner / Tambourine) - 2000–2002
* May Kristin Kaspersen (Backing vocals / Duet partner) - Russian leg of tour 2003
* Karl-Oluf Wennerberg (Drums) - 2009
* Erik Ljungren (Programming / keyboards / bass) - 2009
* Johnny Sjo (Bass) - On occasions between 2000–2005
* Kjetil Bjerkestrand (Keyboard) - On occasions