What if a-ha recorded ‘Hunting High and Low’ in the 50s? Check it out!
YouTube creator marceve76 reimagines a-ha’s 1985 debut album “Hunting High and Low” as if it had been recorded in the 1950s, in a 30-minute video.
Mock 1950s-style cover art for the "Hunting High and Low" reimagining video by marceve76.
YouTube creator marceve76 has reimagined a-ha‘s 1985 debut album “Hunting High and Low” as if it had been recorded in the 1950s, complete with a mock cover picturing the trio as “The A-Has” in period suits and pompadours. The video, titled “A-Ha – Hunting High And Low, if it was recorded in the 50s,” runs 30 minutes and 20 seconds and covers the album’s full ten-track sequence, including “Take On Me.”
The video was already uploaded on November 10, 2025, and has drawn 5,345 views so far. Not a lot that is, despite being one of the better produced videos on his channel, musically speaking. The vocal performance is not Morten Harket’s, and the channel is upfront about the nature of the project, opening with a disclaimer that “voices, faces and characters have no connection to actual people”, and that “the video is an artistic and transformative work made for entertainment purposes.”
A recurring format built around AI reinterpretation
marceve76 runs a 51,900-subscriber channel built almost entirely around reimagining well-known albums as 1950s recordings, a format that leans on AI music generation, voice and style transfer. Side-Line covered the same creator’s take on Depeche Mode’s “Violator” in July 2025. The “Hunting High and Low” video sits in the same catalog alongside similar treatments of Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours,” Blondie’s “Parallel Lines,” David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance,” Led Zeppelin’s debut, Dio’s “Holy Diver” and AC/DC’s “The Razors Edge,” among others.
The full “Hunting High and Low” tracklist covered in the video, with timestamps:
- “Take On Me” – 0:00
- “Train of Thought” – 2:52
- “Hunting High and Low” – 5:52
- “The Blue Sky” – 9:09
- “Living a Boy’s Adventure Tale” – 12:18
- “The Sun Always Shines on T.V.” – 16:12
- “And You Tell Me” – 19:44
- “Love Is Reason” – 22:20
- “I Dream Myself Alive” – 24:52
- “Here I Stand and Face the Rain” – 27:17
About a-ha
a-ha formed in Oslo, Norway, in 1982, when vocalist Morten Harket joined songwriters Pål Waaktaar and Magne Furuholmen, who had been playing together in earlier Oslo bands. Signed to Warner Bros., the trio released their debut album, “Hunting High and Low,” on June 1, 1985, in Norway and the United States, followed by a UK and European release on October 28 that year. Its lead single “Take On Me” had first been issued in 1984 without success; a 1985 re-release, paired with Steve Barron’s rotoscope-animated video mixing live action and pencil animation, took the song to number one in 36 countries and won six awards at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards.
“Hunting High and Low” also produced the singles “Love Is Reason,” “The Sun Always Shines on T.V.,” “Train of Thought” and the title track. The album has remained a recurring point of reference for the band’s reissue campaigns: Side-Line reported on a 6LP boxset built around the record in January 2023, and on an exclusive 1984 Demos vinyl pressed for Record Store Day 2025.
a-ha went on to release albums including “Scoundrel Days” (1986), “Stay on These Roads” (1988), “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” (1990), “Memorial Beach” (1993), and, after a 2000s reunion, “Analogue” (2005), “Foot of the Mountain” (2009), “Cast in Steel” (2015) and “True North” (2022), the latter accompanied by a documentary film. Side-Line covered the 20th-anniversary reissue of “Analogue” as a 2CD deluxe set with a first-time vinyl pressing in February 2026. In June 2025, Morten Harket revealed a Parkinson’s diagnosis, and Magne Furuholmen discussed the band’s creative process in a Side-Line interview earlier that year. “Take On Me” itself continues to draw new versions from other artists, including a 2025 dark cover by Pure Obsessions & Red Nights.
Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!
Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading Side-Line Magazine than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can - and we refuse to add annoying advertising. So you can see why we need to ask for your help.
Side-Line’s independent journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we want to push the artists we like and who are equally fighting to survive.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as 5 US$, you can support Side-Line Magazine – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
The donations are safely powered by Paypal.
