Aha-Take On Me!

Was reading an article on Aha and the song in the title came up, which lead to some quite serious debate over that song between the band members. All of them absolutely hate it and are loathed to play it, even though (i believe) it's the song that sent them on their way and is probably their most memorable bit of work. According to the article, Aha released the song a 2nd time due to it not doing particularly well on the first occasion, good bit of work by them.

I suppose that what i am asking is, are Aha insulting their fans by lambasting the song that so many of them like? should they just put up and shut up, or is it a case of it's their work and they can say what they like about it?

There's a wider question really, especially when it comes to Art, Music etc, and i suppose that if a person is an ardent fan of a band and then they say that the stuff that the fans like is a bit shit, then isn't that insulting and a bit spoilt? I would've thought that there has been plenty of artists who have gone cold on their biggest most popular hits, the songs that brought them mainstream success.

What are peoples thoughts, and do you have a favourite artist who hates a song that meant a lot to you?

Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Kurt dropped it from the set .

Stairway to Heaven.
Plant famously said he'd break out in hives if he had to do it in every show ..

Have they even got a 2nd best song?

I can see why the singer might hate it, cos he'd struggle to hit the high note these days :biggrin:

I would have thought if you have hundreds of hits to choose when doing a set it isn't much of a problem to leave out the tracks that you don't like.

In Aha's case, I am not surprised they hate the song, they probably have to sing it twice a night to fill the set!

Van Morrison springs to mind when talking about being disrespectful to his fans steering clear of playing tracks his fans want to hear.

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Originally Posted by Wales-Bales

Have they even got a 2nd best song?

I can see why the singer might hate it, cos he'd struggle to hit the high note these days :biggrin:

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I don't really know enough about Aha, but 'The Sun Always Shines On TV' isn't bad. Apparently, according to the article I read, Leonard Cohen was a fan!

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Originally Posted by MacAdder

I would have thought if you have hundreds of hits to choose when doing a set it isn't much of a problem to leave out the tracks that you don't like.

In Aha's case, I am not surprised they hate the song, they probably have to sing it twice a night to fill the set!

Van Morrison springs to mind when talking about being disrespectful to his fans steering clear of playing tracks his fans want to hear.

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Yeah, that's the question I'm asking really. I'd it disrespectful towards the fans, especially when the 'Big Hit' comes early in the career when they are struggling to get on? Or should fans just accept that they may love the music and the artist, but it's just not their business what songs the artist plays, a bit like us as city fans wanting a certain player on the pitch but the manager says no.

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Originally Posted by Tuerto

Was reading an article on Aha and the song in the title came up, which lead to some quite serious debate over that song between the band members. All of them absolutely hate it and are loathed to play it, even though (i believe) it's the song that sent them on their way and is probably their most memorable bit of work. According to the article, Aha released the song a 2nd time due to it not doing particularly well on the first occasion, good bit of work by them.

I suppose that what i am asking is, are Aha insulting their fans by lambasting the song that so many of them like? should they just put up and shut up, or is it a case of it's their work and they can say what they like about it?

There's a wider question really, especially when it comes to Art, Music etc, and i suppose that if a person is an ardent fan of a band and then they say that the stuff that the fans like is a bit shit, then isn't that insulting and a bit spoilt? I would've thought that there has been plenty of artists who have gone cold on their biggest most popular hits, the songs that brought them mainstream success.

What are peoples thoughts, and do you have a favourite artist who hates a song that meant a lot to you?

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Interesting article here, butI think it’s more reflective of bands and artists growing tired of their most popular songs;

https://loudwire.com/artists-hated-own-hit-songs/

I can understand “serious” artists not liking really commercial pop songs they recorded early in their careers to try and get some chart success. For example, I can’t imagine the individual Beatles ever being big fans of She Loves You and I’m sure I read ages ago that Lulu hated Shout, her first hit. Sandie Shaw is someone who had a career in the sixties singing stuff she regarded as pap, she loathed her Eorovision song Puppet on a String and re emerged in the 80s with a great collaboration with the Smiths singing Hand in Glove - now she says she doesn’t mind Puppet on a String and has it as her ringtone.

Take on Me, was the song that made Aha. Got to number 1 in the states, but wasn’t their biggest hit in the UK. The Sun Always Shines on TV was the bigger hit here, getting to Number 1.
Not a fan of their music, but Manhattan Skyline is a good song.

Kevin Rowland from Dexys Midnight Runners won’t play any of his hits. As far as he’s concerned those songs are from the past and he got plenty of new material. His attitude was if people are expecting him to sing his hits, then they can go home.

When I first saw this post I thought it a quote from Bale

Aha take on me?? In your 'sweet dreams' ( just keeping the theme going )

It's the opposite of this one, where the singer thought the song was beneath him, so he refused to sing it on the record. The guitar player was then forced to step in and take over the vocal duties, and now the bloke who refused to sing it can't stop singing it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEniy4CmSZQ

I saw them at St David’s Hall in 1985

He couldn’t hit the high notes then

The place was full of hormonal teenage girls
Marvellous

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Originally Posted by Wales-Bales

Have they even got a 2nd best song?

I can see why the singer might hate it, cos he'd struggle to hit the high note these days :biggrin:

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

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Originally Posted by MacAdder

In Aha's case, I am not surprised they hate the song, they probably have to sing it twice a night to fill the set!

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They've released 10 albums so should have enough to choose from.

I think most fans would understand a band getting fed up with something they've been playing for almost 40 years but as long as they do play it and don't introduce it with "here's that bleedin' song you like" then no-one will mind? There's a notion that once something is created and released into the wild it doesn't "belong" to the artist anymore but can be interpreted and received in whatever way the listener wants, so perhaps it's irrelevant what the band think about it later on.

As an aside, The Rembrandts had a big hit with the Friends theme but not much else and had a period where they'd sell out large halls on the back of that one song. So they started playing it first to get it out of the way and the hall/arena would gradually drain until a small group of fans who liked the rest of their stuff were left for the encore. So I imagine they've a strange relationship with that.

By the way, I'd recommend Minor Earth, Major Sky from 2000 if you like slightly moody, Scandinavian, adult-orientated pop. That's my fave album of theirs.

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Originally Posted by life on mars

Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Kurt dropped it from the set .

Stairway to Heaven.
Plant famously said he'd break out in hives if he had to do it in every show ..

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I didn't know that about Plant. That's very interesting 👍

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Originally Posted by Wales-Bales

Have they even got a 2nd best song?

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A-Ha had nine UK top ten hits and another five hits that reached the top twenty. Their first UK chart hit came in 1985 their last was in 2006. One hit wonders they were not.

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Originally Posted by The Lone Gunman

A-Ha had nine UK top ten hits and another five hits that reached the top twenty. Their first UK chart hit came in 1985 their last was in 2006. One hit wonders they were not.

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Have you got all 14 in your collection?

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Originally Posted by Tuerto

Was reading an article on Aha and the song in the title came up, which lead to some quite serious debate over that song between the band members. All of them absolutely hate it and are loathed to play it, even though (i believe) it's the song that sent them on their way and is probably their most memorable bit of work. According to the article, Aha released the song a 2nd time due to it not doing particularly well on the first occasion, good bit of work by them.

I suppose that what i am asking is, are Aha insulting their fans by lambasting the song that so many of them like? should they just put up and shut up, or is it a case of it's their work and they can say what they like about it?

There's a wider question really, especially when it comes to Art, Music etc, and i suppose that if a person is an ardent fan of a band and then they say that the stuff that the fans like is a bit shit, then isn't that insulting and a bit spoilt? I would've thought that there has been plenty of artists who have gone cold on their biggest most popular hits, the songs that brought them mainstream success.

What are peoples thoughts, and do you have a favourite artist who hates a song that meant a lot to you?

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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!

Liam Gallagher hates Wonderwall.

Quite right as well. I liked Oasis but hate that song.

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 Living Daylights is a tune.

In my opinion, at the end of the day, although you're an artist you're also an entertainer. There's no escaping it. You make new records?Do whatever you want. But when people pay good money to come to see you play, give them what they want. And be grateful you had a song like Take Me On.

I love Sabbath but hate paranoid , it's crap

This has been a problem for many years. Even John Lennon said he didn't want to be singing 'She loves you' for the rest of his life. Imagine having to go out, and play the same old songs every gig - it must get so annoying, when no-one wants to hear your new songs, but simply call out for the old stuff. I guess the answer is to keep coming out with amazing stuff, but it's not that easy.

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Originally Posted by Wales-Bales

Have you got all 14 in your collection?

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Most of them on various 80’s and 90’s compilations. Not really my end of the market, but they were a successful act. More UK top ten hits than Tears for Fears, for example.

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Originally Posted by The Bloop

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

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Living Daylights, I think

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Originally Posted by bobh

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.

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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

https://youtu.be/nF7lv1gfP1Q

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

Dreadful insipid crap

I was listening to Judas Priest

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

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!

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.

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Originally Posted by Fatty Thornton

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!

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

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Originally Posted by blue matt

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

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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

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

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Originally Posted by SLUDGE FACTORY

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

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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

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.

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Originally Posted by Wales-Bales

Have you got all 14 in your collection?

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

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Originally Posted by 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

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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.

https://youtu.be/Z-7guWgN98I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeHRqAu2DC0

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Originally Posted by SLUDGE FACTORY

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

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Duran Duran and especially Depeche Mode are both good bands.