American YouTube reviewer Todd in the Shadows has a regular series called One Hit Wonderland in which he takes a look “at bands and artists known for only one song”; exploring their history before and after the big hit. His first video in this series was on Norwegian synth-pop group a-ha’s ‘Take On Me’, in which he fully acknowledges that a-ha’s members are absolutely not true one hit wonders just because ‘Take On Me’ was their only enduring hit in the United States.
The band has reportedly sold over 55 million records worldwide. They’re among the best-selling Scandinavian acts ever. A 1991 gig at the Rock in Rio festival earned them a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for drawing the largest paying rock concert attendance (198,000). They still fill stadiums. They did a James Bond theme.
But Todd’s criteria for inclusion isn’t entirely inaccurate. It’s not controversial to call ‘Take On Me’ one of the best pop songs of the 1980s, while the accompanying music video by director Steve Barron justifiably remains a titan of the form. No matter the sales figures of subsequent singles and albums, ‘Take On Me’ inarguably defines a-ha’s legacy.
The band – frontman Morten Harket, guitarist Pål Waaktaar-Savoy, keyboardist Magne Furuholmen – and directors Thomas Robsahm and Aslaug Holm attempt to wrestle with that legacy in a-ha: The Movie, a documentary that shines a light on the toll that astronomical early success took on three then very young men.
An “eternal crescendo of noise” is how Harket describes constantly being in the spotlight during their mid-’80s heyday, barely able to just be with his bandmates who didn’t get nearly the sort of attention their falsetto singer with movie star good looks did – one archive clip sees Harket visibly uncomfortable with an interviewer’s request for him to remove his shirt. Image issues and fraught collaborations saw them – naively, they admit on reflection – “go with the flow”, allowing themselves to be pigeon-holed as a cheesy teen idol act before attempting to reinvent themselves in the ’90s.
The most compelling throughline of a-ha: The Movie is its level of detail and frankness. While the group’s stayed together for 40 years, through hiatuses and solo ventures, there’s an impression they’re not especially close. “a-ha was never based on friendship,” is said at one point. “It’s not the cornerstone, not what brought us together.” They formed as musicians looking to hone their craft to achieve the widest possible success, and continue as serious-minded colleagues unafraid to sugar-coat disagreements.
A talking heads format is eschewed by other contributors’ input being audio-only disembodied voices, effectively keeping the focus on the band. Exploring essentially every album of theirs, the doc’s intimate style proves somewhat insular by the end, as it dawns on you that the only speaking contributors have been the band, family members and a few direct collaborators.
There’s a clip of Coldplay’s Chris Martin citing a-ha as an influence in the early 2000s, but if part of this documentary’s aim is to reframe the group’s narrative, restricting the new contributions to their inner circle seems limiting.
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ANTICIPATION.
[Alan Partridge voice] A-haaaa! 3
ENJOYMENT.
Keen to, uh, take on A-ha’s whole discography and maybe even see them in concert. 4
IN RETROSPECT.
A compelling portrait of a band whose level of craft is perhaps overlooked. 3
Directed by
Thomas Robsahm, Aslaug Holm
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