Take On Me: How A-ha Turned a Synth Riff Into a Global Smash (Eventually)
Norwegian synth-pop/new wave band A-ha found incredible success with their debut album Hunting High and Low, released in 1985.
Three singles came from this album: the title track, The Sun Always Shines on T.V., and of course, the unforgettable Take On Me.
Looking back, it may seem like everything fell into place instantly for the three Norwegian lads, but it wasn’t a straight path to success.
Their lead single and by far their biggest tune, Take On Me, wasn’t well received at first. Only after re-recording it and filming the now-iconic video did it become a worldwide hit.
But the story of Take On Me goes even further back. The song was written before Morten Harket (vocals) had even joined the band. All they had at the time was the riff. In fact, it was after hearing this riff that Morten decided to join.
The same thing happened when Andrew Wickham (A&R, Warner Brothers) signed the band—he did so after hearing a rough version of Take On Me.
Unfortunately, Warner Brothers only had A-ha for the U.S. market. In the U.K., they were under WEA, who made a budget video for Take On Me that didn’t land. The original recording wasn’t great either.
A-ha’s Take On Me: The Three Releases That Made It a Global Hit
4o miniIt was released twice without any success, and the boys were devastated, thinking that Take On Me had gotten lost in record company politics.
Fortunately, their American record label recognised the issue. After re-recording the track, a new video was commissioned, which would prove to be the game changer. Nothing like this had ever been done before.
Jeff Aeroff was the man responsible for bringing the Take On Me video to life. In the mid-’80s, Jeff was the creative director at Warner Bros.
He brought in cutting-edge animators of the time, and they settled on a technique called rotoscoping. This process involved filming real people and then drawing over the footage.
It was an incredibly time-consuming technique, with the team working for 16 weeks to finish the animation.
The result was so impressive that Take On Me shot to #1 around the world, largely due to the video’s impact and its heavy rotation on MTV.
However, it wasn’t all about the video. When the song was released digitally twenty years later, it sold 1.5 million copies in the U.S. alone.
Back in the day, A-ha’s debut album sold 10 million copies. Although the band continued releasing albums after this success, none of them matched the glory days when Take On Me was released for a third time.
A-ha Tunes | Related Pages
Take On Me | Chords + TAB
You can learn to play Take On Me by A-ha using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.
| Bm | E | A | D C#m |
We’re talking away, no, I don’t know what I’m to say…
Check out the full TAB lesson here: Take On Me (A-ha) Guitar Lesson with TAB.
A-ha on the web
