Album dossier / 1985

Hunting High and Low

A-ha · Synth-pop

The Norwegian trio's debut, propelled by the iconic rotoscoped 'Take On Me' video, became one of the best-selling synth-pop albums of the decade -- but it took three producers and two full years to get there. Ex-New Musik frontman Tony Mansfield tracked much of the album at Pete Townshend's Eel Pie Studios using a Fairlight-heavy approach the band found alienating; when Warner Bros balked at his version of 'Take On Me' (which stalled at UK #137 on its first single release), engineer Neill King was brought in to re-record the backing tracks before hitmaker Alan Tarney (writer of Cliff Richard's 'We Don't Talk Anymore') was finally called in to re-cut 'Take On Me' from scratch at RG Jones studio in Wimbledon, deliberately recreating the trio's original Sydenham demo rather than Mansfield's reworking. Tarney also re-recorded 'The Sun Always Shines on T.V.' and re-produced the title track, and it was only the third release of 'Take On Me' -- paired with its now-famous Steve Barron-directed rotoscope video -- that finally sent it to #1 in the US and UK charts in late 1985.