Aha-Take On Me!

[lardy]

I'll go hunting high and low to think of one.
Didn't they do a Bond theme aswell?

Living Daylights, I think

[life on mars]

Apparently Norman Greenbaum once tried to play some songs that weren't "Spirit in the Sky" and got booed until he sang his big hit - over and over.

The first single I bought what a classic guitar start Canned Heat must have loved it sound

However this is a cracking cover and what a looker the lady is :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W1Jm2jF8MI

[Fancydan]

https://youtu.be/nF7lv1gfP1Q

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

There were a lot of dreadful bands around and a ha were right up there

Dreadful insipid crap

I was listening to Judas Priest

[Sparticus_Mills]

See people saying Morton Harket couldn't hit the high notes, I know he holds some kind of record for holding a note in this track.

https://youtu.be/oVl4qvHuY8g

[The Hooded Claw]

What a video on that track!

I remember watching Crash Test Dummies at the university in the 1990s and the lead singer grumbled about singing ‘Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm’, substituting the lyrics in the chorus with ‘F-cking sh1tty, f-cking sh1tty’, which was a bit of a surprise!

[insider]

I think they released take on me and it bombed then someone made the video which was very clever for the time they re-released it and it became a big hit.

[blue matt]

They played Take on Me last, last Tuesday night in the castle, as part of a three song encore, including Sun Always Shines on TV. I guess there'd be havoc if they hadn't played it! The hormonal teenage girls mentioned elsewhere in the thread are all now 40-somethings who were equally excitable last week!

you might be able to add another 10 years onto that 40 - something age

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

you might be able to add another 10 years onto that 40 - something age

Yep

The girls in my year at school who were screaming over all that rubbish are hitting mid fifties now

Duran Duran , A Ha , Depeche Mode all a complete load of bollocks

[The Hooded Claw]

Very interesting article on the track. The version we know was re-recorded from the original version and it took a lot of patience and investment from Warner Brothers Records to make into a hit.
The Pet Shop Boys were with CBS Records in their early days and recorded the first version of ‘West End Girls’ there, before moving to Parlophone and making the version that became a hit.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_On_Me

[Wales-Bales]

Yep

The girls in my year at school who were screaming over all that rubbish are hitting mid fifties now

Duran Duran , A Ha , Depeche Mode all a complete load of bollocks

The later Depeche Mode stuff was very influential in electronic music circles, and Duran Duran were no mugs as this video shows ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4YVrxZEloY

[Taunton Blue Genie]

Although not a fan of A-ha I was invited to the gig by my niece's ex-partner who is their sound engineer on the current tour. It was interesting to view the concert alongside him and while he was twiddling knobs on the main mixing desk, which was £70K worth of kit, he advised me. As for A-ha, to be fair to them, they came over as very accomplished and the singer's voice was crystal clear. Their fans really enjoyed it although I thought that the support band, The Christians, were quite dull.

[life on mars]

Have you got all 14 in your collection?

In frames alongside his Stranglers ones, nothing like a diversity of taste .

[Citizen's Nephew]

Very interesting article on the track. The version we know was re-recorded from the original version and it took a lot of patience and investment from Warner Brothers Records to make into a hit.
The Pet Shop Boys were with CBS Records in their early days and recorded the first version of ‘West End Girls’ there, before moving to Parlophone and making the version that became a hit.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_On_Me

It had a huge budget for its time, almost half a £M in today's money. The bulk of that was spent on filming the sequences and then the animators hand drawing the projections. It was real film too, 35mm, not video/digital. The artwork could all be done much more cheaply these days and with motion capture. The skill and pencil-work talent is still essential.

The main animator was a guy called Michael Patterson who's inspiration for the style was a short film he made in 1981 called Commuter. It's 4:44 in length and SFW and well worth a watch. Each frame is from his head and not screen projected so back in 1981, everything that we do on a commuter and drawing tablet today, was done on paper and each frame photographed and that film hand developed and edited old style. I love his film. It's brilliant.

Just to add, even though the technology available today would significantly reduce the music video costs, the creative skill to produce the drawn sequences and artistic vision is essential. Oh, and I love the music video and, to me, the song only works because of the pace and beat with the final cut of the visuals. The video made that a hit

I've just finished a 30 hour playthrough of The Last of US Part II which imo is the greatest piece of video game production to date. The character Ellie sings a version of Take On Me set in a brutal dystopian future. The 3D animation is outstanding and the scene is very emotional in the game story (the scene is set in an old movie theatre in Seattle). The video is SFW too and is below.

[NYCBlue]

Yep

The girls in my year at school who were screaming over all that rubbish are hitting mid fifties now

Duran Duran , A Ha , Depeche Mode all a complete load of bollocks

Duran Duran and especially Depeche Mode are both good bands.