Pop groups, you'll hardly believe it, used to invent themselves and didn't sound like anyone else. A-Ha were such a group and A-Ha were A-CE, epic-pop troubadours from Foreign (in this case, Norway) starring supernaturally good-looking Morten 'Horten Forten Snorten' Harket with the greatest falsetto in the history of pop music EVER and his pals, er, P?l and Mags. Like a colossus in exquisitely frayed denim breeks they bestrode the planet in the late-'80s with their class-pop anthems 'Take On Me' (classic enough to be this year's outright winner on Stars In Their Eyes if there's any justice, which there isn't), 'The Sun Always Shines On TV' (brains at work and everything!), 'Hunting High And Low' etc and they were all BRILLIANT and A-Ha sold 20 million albums to 'prove' it.
And now they're back! Swoon! And they're still REALLY GOOD, if not quite The Revolution. Demolition string-quaver quiver-pop-a-ruddy-kimbo as Morten trills "staaaaay!!!" and a thousand moonbeams dart from black skies of nu-pop baloney on a clifftop everglade under a wind-machine in Rio like 'NSync and all the rest of it never happened. Or, if you like, it's a bit James Bond, 'cos they did the James Bond theme tune once, they were that good. Sigh.
Sylvia Patterson
8.8
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