A few weeks ago we reported about a string of canceled concerts of a-ha. Whereas it was first said that Morten suffered from laryngitis, it now was revealed that both Morten Harket and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy were also diagnosed with covid-19 after the Oslo Spektrum concert on 20 May.

It doesn’t come as a surprise as the entire Side-Line team who was present at the show actually also got infected there, luckily with minor consequences.

The news was confirmed by a-ha manager Harald Wiik to VG. Morten began to feel signs of irregularities in his throat on Friday 20 May during the first concert in Oslo Spektrum and his condition worsened during the night. The next day, Harket was diagnosed with laryngitis and the concert later in the evening had to be canceled. The same thing happened with two concerts in Bournemouth and Liverpool. On Monday 23 May, both Morten Harket and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy tested positive for covid-19.

A new medical examination concluded that it was likely that Morten’s laryngitis was caused by covid-19 and thus also the two concerts in London and Birmingham got canceled.

Morten: “When your body denies you access to what is otherwise a matter of course, you are completely parked. It is very frustrating to go in a circle in the waiting room and not be able to say where this is going, from day to day, to everyone else who also has their plans put on hold. It is almost unbelievable that I have escaped with so little dropout through almost 40 years of touring. A cold can be enough to strain a bone on a large appliance. For my part, it is almost impossible to avert all close contact with volatile groups of people during tours, in lobbies, elevators, in and out of hotels or at airports.”

Paul Waaktaar-Savoy: “We have had incredibly few cancellations during 30 years of tournaments, so we are not used to this. I’ve been using N95 masks pretty much constantly from the time I walked out the door at home in Venice, California until recently where it started to get more lax in the backstage area, plus we started getting more together on stage. Big mistake!”

Harket’s voice is not completely recovered, “the healing process has been a bit messy”, but the last few days have been stably better and given hope that he can be on stage this weekend.

For more on a-ha, see Watch a-ha via livestream from Montreux Jazz Festival this Friday on Side-Line.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

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!

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Electropop is a hybrid music genre combining elements of electronic and pop genres. During the late 1970s bands such as the Human League, Kraftwerk, and later on Gary Numan, Soft Cell and John Foxx helped pioneer a new synth-pop style that drew more heavily from electronic music and emphasized primary usage of synthesizers. Developed in the late 1970s it has seen several revival periods up until now.

We picked out the best synthpop albums from the past 4 decades (!!!). Here’s our list.

The Human League – ‘Dare’ (1981)

The Human League are ‘oldies’ when it comes to synthpop. Formed in Sheffield in 1977 and initially an experimental electronic outfit, the group attained widespread commercial success with their third album “Dare” in 1981. The album contained four hit singles, including the UK/US number one hit “Don’t You Want Me”. The band’s third studio album, it was recorded between March and September 1981 following the departure of founding members Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, and saw the band shift direction from their prior avant-garde electronic style toward a more pop-friendly, commercial sound led by frontman Philip Oakey. A remix album based on “Dare”, “Love and Dancing”, was released in 1982.

Talk Talk – ‘It’s My Life’ (1984)

Talk Talk were an English band formed in 1981, led by Mark Hollis (vocals, guitar, piano), Lee Harris (drums), and Paul Webb (bass). The group achieved early chart success with the synth-pop singles “Talk Talk” (1982), “It’s My Life”, and “Such a Shame” (both 1984) before moving towards a more experimental approach in the mid-1980s. Not surprisingly that our next pick is “It’s My Life”, the second studio album by Talk Talk, released in 1984. The album enjoyed an enormous succes thanks to the big international success of its singles (notably “Such a Shame”). We have a soft spot for the tracks “Dum Dum Girl”, “Such a Shame”, “Renée”, “It’s My Life” and “It’s You” although the entire album is just extremely enjoyable.

Alphaville – ‘Forever Young’ (1984)

The German synth-pop band Alphaville, which formed in Münster in 1982, achieved chart success with the singles “Forever Young”, “Big in Japan”, “Sounds Like a Melody”. All these were taken from their 1984 debut album “Forever Young” which was produced by Colin Pearson, Wolfgang Loos and Andreas Budde. Despite the success of the album and its singles, the band did not tour as they felt more like ‘studio rats’. It remains the band’s best output to date.

a-ha – ‘Scoundrel Days’ (1986)

The Norwegian synth-pop band a-ha was formed in Oslo in 1982 by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy (guitars), Magne Furuholmen (keyboards and guitars), and Morten Harket (vocals). “Scoundrel Days” is the second studio album by the trio and offered a more mature sound compared to their debut “Hunting High and Low” (1985). “Scoundrel Days”, recorded in England in early 1986 and produced by Alan Tarney, sported such singles as “I’ve Been Losing You”, “Cry Wolf” and “Maybe, Maybe” which was released solely in Bolivia. “Manhattan Skyline” was the forth and final single released from the long-player.

Erasure – ‘Wonderland’ (1986)

“Wonderland” is the debut studio album by the English synth-pop duo Erasure and was released in 1986. Although it was not an immediate success, the three singles released from it did become cult tracks overtime: “Who Needs Love Like That”, “Oh L’amour” and “Heavenly Action”. Although “Wonderland” was considered a failure, especially when comparing it to Clarke’s prior successes with Depeche Mode and Yazoo, the album became an all time favourite that laid the fundament of what was to follow in 1987 with the release of “The Circus”. The album was produced by Flood who would become a long-time collaborator.

Pet Shop Boys – ‘Actually’ (1987)

Pet Shop Boys, the English synth-pop duo formed in London in 1981, broke all records when they released “Actually”, their second studio album, in 1987. It was pushed forward by such great tracks as “One More Chance”, “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” (with Dusty Springfield), “Shopping”, “Rent”, “It Couldn’t Happen Here”, “It’s a Sin”, “Heart” and the majestic “King’s Cross”. In short an album filled with hits.

New Order – ‘Technique’ (1989)

New Order was formed in 1980 by vocalist and guitarist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris. The band formed after the demise of Joy Division, following the suicide of lead singer Ian Curtis and were joined by Gillian Gilbert on keyboards later that year. Their experience of the early 1980s New York club scene saw them increasingly incorporate dance rhythms and electronic instrumentation into their work which resulted in their 1983 hit “Blue Monday” becoming and absolute monster hit. However, we picked out “Technique”, their fifth studio album. Released in 1989 by Factory Records, the album incorporates Balearic beat and acid house influences into the group’s dance-rock sound. “Technique” was the first New Order album to reach the number one spot on the UK charts and had such excellent singles as “Fine Time”, “Round and Round” and “Run 2”.

Depeche Mode – ‘Violator’ (1990)

“Violator” is the seventh studio album by England’s Depeche Mode. It was first released on 19 March 1990 through Mute Records internationally, and through Sire and Reprise Records in the United States. Preceded by the singles “Personal Jesus” and “Enjoy the Silence” (a top-10 entry in both the United Kingdom and the United States), the album propelled the band into international stardom, and also yielded the singles “Policy of Truth” and “World in My Eyes”. The album is generally considered as their most accomplisched electropop album before they encorporated more rock elements in the next album, “Songs of Faith and Devotion”. The role of Alan Wilder was crucial in “Violator”, you only have to compare the first and final version of “Enjoy The Silence” to notice the huge difference.

Bel Canto – ‘Birds of Passage’ (1990)

Bel Canto is a Norwegian music duo, originally a trio, fronted by vocalist Anneli Drecker and musically powered by Geir Jenssen and Nils Johansen. Signed originally to Crammed Discs, their second album “Birds of Passage” is considered as an absolute pearl holding an excellent production (aided by Giles Martin) and a long list of guest musicians who added acoustic elements to the cold nordic synths Jenssen and multi-instrumentalist Johansen. It was also the last album featuring Geir Jenssen. It holds the hits “Intravenous”, “Birds of Passage”, “A Shoulder to the Wheel”, “Time Without End”, “Continuum” and “The Suffering”. The band remains an often well-hidden pearl in electropopland.

De/Vision – ‘Fairyland?’ (1996)

De/Vision, a German synthpop act formed in 1988, was at the peak of its electropop stardom around the mid-nineties culiminating in the outstanding “Fairyland?” album which had such great tracks as “I Regret”, “Sweet Life”, “Today’s Life” or “Bleed Me White”. The band was fronting a new wave of electropop bands in Germany but was generally considered to be the most consistent one as far as quality and output. Sadly enough the release, and also the band’s earlier material, are no longer available on Spotify.

Wolfsheim – ‘Spectators’ (1999)

Wolfsheim was a synthpop duo from Hamburg, Germany, that consisted of Markus Reinhardt and Peter Heppner. Their fourth studio album was “Spectators” (1999) preceeded by two ‘pre-release’ singles from the album. “Once in a Lifetime” was released on October 16, 1998 and “It’s Hurting For The First Time” followed on November 30th. The LP was produced by Wolfsheim and José Alvarez-Brill and held 11 new songs. To this day, “Spectators” is the best-selling album by Wolfsheim with over 250,000 copies sold. The third single, “Künstliche Welten”, was released in 1999.

Iris – ‘Disconnect’ (2000)

“Disconnect” is the debut album by the electropop group Iris. Released in 2000 via the US label A Different Drum, the synthpop label by excellence, its success was guaranteed by the now cult synthpop jewels “Annie, Would I Lie to You?”, “Lose In Wanting” and “Danger Is The Shame”. Originally formed by Reagan Jones and Mat Morris in 1993, after the release of their first album “Disconnect”, Matthew Morris was replaced with Andrew Sega, who pushed the band’s sound in a more experimental electronic direction. Sadly enough the release, and also the band’s earlier material, are no longer available on Spotify.

Elegant Machinery – ‘A Soft Exchange’ (2008)

The Swedish synthpop band Elegant Machinery defined the Swedish synthpop movement along with such bands as Page, S.P.O.C.K, Sista Mannen På Jorden and Kiethevez. Heavily influenced by acts like Yazoo, The Human League, Depeche Mode and Rational Youth, the trio Robert Enforsen, Richard Jomshof and Leslie Bayne started the band in 1988 under the name Pole Position. The band was very successful in Sweden, with a number of successful singles and various awards. But it is their 2008 album “A Soft Exchange” that earned them a place in our list. The album was extremely mature yet very melodic and features such pearls a “With Grace”, “Do You Know”, “Feel The Silence”, “Bleeding Words” and “Is This The Way”.

Electro Spectre – ‘Dangerous Game’ (2012)

The Norwegian electronic music duo Electro Spectre fronts the 3rd electropop wave. Isak Rypdal (writer-producer) and Alexander Björneboe (writer-singer) debuted in 2009 with the album “Watch It All Turn” (which was later reproduced and re-released in 2010). The duo has secured us from a steady and consistent output ever since. In our list we picked the band’s 2012 release, which is their second studio album entitled “Dangerous Game”. Included are such pearls as “Love Thief”, “Dancing Girl”, “World Keeps Turning” and “Tokyo Shuffle”.

Mondträume – ‘Empty’ (2014)

Mondträume is the creative outlet of 2 Spanish talented artists Pikotto Vond Mond and Damasius Venys. In only a few years, the duo rapidly caught the attention of concert organizers, released several songs on compilations, and secured a label contract with Belgium’s electronic label Alfa Matrix where they debuted with the album “Empty”. The hits “Life Is Short”, “Parasite” and especially the synth pop pearl “Far From Pain” show why this band became one of the strongholders in the 3rd electropop wave together with such bands as Electro Spectre, and more.

Eldrina Mich

As Eldrina Mich I work as a go-between and a devil’s advocate when it comes to Side-Line. If our own staff needs to be interviewed then ask the questions no one else dares to ask.

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Bridges were a Norwegian rock band formed in Oslo, Norway in 1978. It is notable for being the predecessor to synth pop band a-ha. The band released their debut album “Fakkeltog” in 1980, but their second album “Våkenatt” which was recorded within the following year, will only get released in full later next month (November 20th) and this after almost 40 years. Good to know, the album holds the early version of the later well known a-ha tracks “Scoundrel Days” and “Soft Rains Of April” as you can hear below.

Bridges included future a-ha members, Magne Furuholmen and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy, alongside Viggo Bondi (Bass) and Erik Hagelien (Drums), who was later replaced by Oystein Jevanord on drums. The band was formed during their schooldays in Oslo, Norway and they played gigs across 1978 and 1979. One audience member was the future a-ha lead singer, Morten Harket.

The second Bridges album didn’t get released earlier because band members Waaktaar and Furuholmen planned to continue their musical careers in London after 1981, but Bondi and Jevanord declined, and so bridges split up and Magne Furuholmen and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy would go on to form the synth-pop act a-ha.

As you will notice, the Norwegian psych-rock sound of Bridges is very different to that of a-ha’s electro pop.

“It’s not only an essential part of Norwegian music history, as the missing link between Bridges and a-ha; as I listened to the record, I discovered that it’s a masterpiece which still feels fresh and relevant today,” said rock historian Terje Nilsen at Rockheim in 2018.

“Våkenatt” is available to pre-order now and the first single from the album “Asleep” can be downloaded and streamed below.

Note that “Våkenett” had been pressed up in a small run of vinyl copies in 2018, by Norway’s national museum for pop music, Rockheim Museum, in Trondheim, Norway. 900 copies of the album were produced on green vinyl 180gram vinyl presented in a box.

Side-Line also covered a-ha’s ‘White Xmas Lies’.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

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!

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Out soon is the forthcoming album/DVD “a-Ha: MTV Unplugged Summer Solstice” which includes 17 tracks by the band in acoustic versions plus 2 cover versions and 2 brand new songs. Today the band released a video for the acoustic version of their first hit “Take On Me”.

You can pre-order a super deluxe fanbox here: MTV Unplugged – Summer Solstice (Ltd. Fanbox)

The acoustic set was recorded live on June 22 and 23, 2017 at the Giske Harbour Hall in Norway with an enlarged line-up. The line-up for the shows included a-ha frontman Morten Harket and the 2 other co-founders Magne Furuholmen and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy, next to Lars Horntveth (acoustic guitars, resonator lap steel guitar, vibraphone, bass clarinet and soprano saxophone), Morten Qvenild (upright piano, harpsichord, harmonium, dulcitone, mandolinette, autoharp and kokle), Even Enersen Ormestad (bass), Karl Oluf Wenneberg (drums, percussion, bells and bass xylophone), Madeleine Ossum (violin and backing vocals), Emilie Heldal Lidsheim (viola and backing vocals) and Tove Margrethe Erikstad (cello and backing vocals).

Below is the live video for “Take On Me”.

The band also released 2 other videos.

“The Sun Always Shines On TV” featuring Ingrid Helene Håvik.

“The Living Daylights”

Side-Line also covered a-ha’s ‘Hunting High And Low’.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

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!

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A few months ago we announced that a-ha would have worked together again with John Ratcliff, but strangely enough our requests for further info on this weird info – it’s widely known that John Ratcliff and a-ha no longer are on speaking terms – remained unanswered by a-ha’s team. We now know why.

As it turns out, things were a little bit more complicated than that. Until recently, 2011 to be precise, Ratcliff held on to Paul Waaktaar-Savoy’s old diaries (including lyrics, notes, plans, sketches and drawings), the band’s eight-track tape recorder and – and this is interesting – the band’s early 15 tape reels recordings also known as the Rendezvous Studios tapes. The story was made public by Aftenposten.

26 years after the band forgot to take the material with them from the carpeted studio floor they slept on, they finally returned in the hands of the band. Part of the studio tapes will now see a release on the band’s upcoming 4CD/DVD set of their debut “Hunting High and Low”. We have to thank all this to the work of Norwegian a-ha fans Petter-Anton ‘P.A.’ Stenersen, a high school teacher, and Christopher Hopkins who bought the material straight from John Ratcliff for almost 19.500 UK Pound. ‘Ransom money’ as some around the band call it.

John Ratcliff entered a-ha’s career in 1983 when the entire band lived for 2 years on the carpeted floor in the Rendezvous Studios in London. Studio owner, John Ratcliff, quickly became the band’s first manager who also produced their first album. Ratcliff: “I played keyboards and performed backing vocals on “Hunting High and Low” and sang the highest note of all the tracks on “Here I Stand and Face the Rain”. When a-ha left the studio to travel the world promoting “Take on me” and their debut album “Hunting High and Low”, they practically left all their belongings behind in the Rendezvous Studios.”

Ratcliff decided to take the material home in the end. Not that he kept them intact according to Waaktaar-Savoy, because ripped-out pages from the notebooks were beginning to appear on eBay in the years after. Ratcliff denies he was the eBay seller though.

Immediately after the handover the reels were rushed to the studios of the Manchester School of Sound Recording in order to transfer the sound. The super deluxe-version of “Hunting High and Low” (4 CDs and 1 DVD) will contain many of the songs Stenersen salvaged from London in 2011, hence the John Ratcliff connection we reported about a while ago.

And there’s more. In one notebook Waaktaar-Savoy found a song which will now be featured on the band’s upcoming “Cast of Steel” album, namely song number 9, “She’s humming a tune” which was written 31 years ago. Paul Waaktaar-Savoy: “When I got the books were back, I saw the text and remembered ‘that one yes, that was cool’. Then I thought it would be cool to record this one in particular now.”

For fans the story also has some extra juicy details. Ratcliff says that Warner initially wanted to pull out of the agreement to release “Hunting high and low” unless the recording would sound like the one that had been played to them in the beginning (the Ratcliff recording that is). On top they would have requested that a-ha should be kept out of the process. Ratcliff: “Some of the things I did are still unknown to the boys. They don’t know how close they were to the boat back home.” So Ratcliff made new recordings after producer Tony Mansfield had left the scene. Paul Waaktaar-Savoy confirms this side of the story: “We only had produced seven songs that we could present. We mixed five of them to their final version. He mixed the two others without telling us, for some reason.”

You can order the 4CD/DVD set right now on Amazon De and on Amazon UK!

Side-Line also covered a-ha’s ‘Cast In Steel’.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

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!

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