In today's unexpected entertainment news, a-ha. (I mean it's actually expected, if you read entertainment news, which I DO NOT.) Anywho, not the exclamation, AHA — though that also sort of works — but Norwegian 80s pop-band a-ha, best know for their ONE song that has decidedly stood the test of time — "Take On Me." Besides the catchy lyrics (Take on me, take me on, ad infinitum), there was the even catchier video.
This video includes a guy who is a pencil drawing, and a girl that is an actual human reading a comic book in a diner, and then the guy comes OUT of the book and pulls the girl IN the book. Then he's real and she's a pencil drawing and onward with a motorcycle race, fight, giant wrench, and then they are BOTH pencil drawings and there is a portal to the real world but only the girl goes into the real world and then she frantically opens the comic. And then the guy comes OUT of the comic and he's a person and IN the girl's apartment — which I think may be breaking and entering but I'm not sure because he just materialized in there. Either way that is fucking creepy.
Jesus, what is this video even ABOUT?
Ok well it doesn't really matter because everyone who was alive in the 80s knows that song and its lyrics (to review: Take on me, take me on). So ANYWAY they're back. And by them, I mean the whole band — vocalist Morten Harket, keyboardist Magne Furuholmen and guitarist Paul Waaktaar-Savoy. Now, you can't really blame them for capitalizing on their success THIRTY YEARS LATER. A. Norway pretty much only produces screamo now and B. it's fucking freezing there and C. no one wants to be known for their Vikings — so.much.pillaging.
Screamo: A somewhat terrifying example.
This is exactly the stuff Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker warned us about (too bad they couldn't warn us about Jim).
I digress. a-ha is BACK and their new album will drop this very Friday! Will include what is sure to be a hit: Take Me On (to the orthopedist, for a new hip). Morten is 56 which is pretty old for a rocker but Keith Richards is like a hundred so a-ha has at least 44 years on them.