Congratulations ‼️‼️‼️🎈🎊🎉🍾 Alexis💥💥🤟🤟👍 The baby has to start so early listening just rock 🎸 music 🎶 😏😏it’s a joke or maybe not 🤨. Good reaction Keep it up
I don't see it come up that often, although I always look to see if someone mentions it (it seems to have been mentioned here multiple times already, nice). I was the only person I knew around my age range who had seen Altered States when this song released. :)
This was a revolutionary of a video back in the day for it's special effect. This song became a hit in the US because of its innovative video where a cartoon figure beckons the reader to join him in comic. It was created by Michael Patterson and his wife Candace Reckinger. The video was inspired by the transformation scene in the 1980 sci-fi film Altered States. Every scene was shot live then projected onto paper and traced.
hadn't seen this in a while, but remembered the end was an homage to Altered States, thought they might mention that. killer track but I think the Sun always shines on tv is actually a better song, their follow up single, also a cool video, tho, not this cool, but they raised the bar kind of through the roof with this one.
Very subtle nuance. After the waitress crumbles the comic, you’ll notice the walls are all crumbled as they’re running through the halls. Most don’t notice that detail.
The video is inspired by Michael Patterson's student film "Commuter". The record company hired Patterson to draw the video for "Take on me", which was directed by Steve Barron, who has also directed the video for "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson and "Money for Nothing" for Dire Straits. Patterson got help from his wife to make the frames, and spent four months drawing the 3,000 drawings that are used in the video. When he had finished his hand was so sore that he could not hold the pen. "Commuter" was later used in the video for the band's fourth single, "Train of Thought". You should see it too. The video was important for the breakthrough of the song and the band. It was so unlike anything else you had heard before, so people needed time to get used to it. That doesn't mean the song continued to depend on the video. The band's manager said a few years ago that the song at the time had passed 5 million radio plays in the US alone. That means 300-400 times a day on average, for 35 years. We can therefore safely say that the song stands well on its own, without the video. The manager estimated that about a third of his job consisted of managing that one song. One of the members of the band has stated that "Take on me" is a better pop star than they themselves ever were. After the fantastic video for "Take on me", the band continued providing great videos for most of their singles. The follow up, "The sun always shines on TV" is an epic song, but has a very good video, too.
*"a-ha" is a band from Norway. The "Take On Me" original version is taken from their debut-album "Hunting High And Low", which was released in May 1985. The single "Take On Me" was released in October 1984. The MTV Unplugged album "Summer Solstice" was recorded on 22-23 June 2017 and released on the 06th October 2017. Highly recommending also the songs "The Sun Always Shines On T.V.", "Foot Of The Mountain", "Forever Not Yours", "Summer Moved On", "The Living Daylights", ......* 🎵🎸💿🔊🔥
I saw an interview with the lead singer who said he regretted singing that really high note. It became a part of history for the band and fans expected that moment every concert no matter how much time had passed.
Rotoscoping wasn't a new animation technique back then. I think it has been around since the 1920s or '30s. But its application in the iconic video was a stroke of artistic genius. I remember my mum thinking it was computer animated.
A-ha's MTV Unplugged set is amazing. I think the acoustic version in Deadpool is from that concert. They had some incredible guest including Allison Moyet and Ian McCulloch.
I was born in 83. I never liked 80s music but in my older days there have been some songs from the 80s that I for some reason love now. This is one of those songs. I’m slowly coming back around to the stereotypical 80s music.
So many gems,genres to chose from and all these musical icons came from the 80s-Prince,Madonna,Janet Jackson,George Michaels,just to name a few and Michael Jackson dominated the 80s too.
The band got their name from a song that was being written by their guitar player. Morten Harket saw "A-ha" written in his notebook and thought that was a great name for the band. He said the song was no good but the name was great.
This video always ranks in the top 100 of all time videos....even though we keep adding more videos each year. There is a recent live A-HA version with lead vocalist now near 70yrs old...still hitting those notes!!! How!!!???
That last scene where he comes into her world is taken straight from a scene in the movie Altered States. In that movie, the similar character was played by William Hurt.
I was watching an episode of " Family Guy ". And Chris while shopping at the supermarket got sucked into the same type of video running for his life with the singer from the bad guys. Finally he breaks out and Lois asks him " Chris , where have you been ? ". He yells " I Don't Know !!! '😂😂😂
You have to be there in 1985. Every teenage girl in the world had the biggest crush on Morten Harket. Best song of the 80s. Morten started a 2 year relationship with the model in the cafe. It took 16 weeks to create video.
Great reaction!! Ah the joys of a new baby! This song is still a favourite of mine - both versions! (and yes, the unplugged acoustic version hits very differently in my 'older' age! Not to mention Morten Harket's voice has stood the test of time!). And this video still holds up amazingly well to this day! Revolutionary then in 1985, but artistically awesome now! HIGHLY suggest the follow up to this video - The Sun Always Shines On TV! Future considerations, Manhattan Skyline, Lifelines, Hunting High and Low (from the same album as Take On Me), Stay On These Roads. Cheers.
I think it's worth mentioning that the follow up video 'The Sun Always Shines On TV' begins where 'Take On Me' ends...Morten Harkets' character gets separated again from his love interest as he gets painfully pulled back into his comic world. So, despite the happy ending eluded to herein, they don't get their forever after. This simple little nod to continuity blew my 17 year old mind at the time, because it was rarely seen in music videos, despite being marvelous story-telling. IMO, the full impact of 'Take On Me' is only felt from knowing/seeing this follow up scene. As an aside, the title song of this album, 'Hunting High And Low' is probably my favorite A-Ha song to this very day.
Great song and groundbreaking video, I remember that it made all the top list of videos back in the day along with Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer and ZZ Top's Rough Boy
In 1988 I was on my way to buy comics from the original Forbidden Planet here in Central London. Lost in my thoughts about thinking what I was going to buy then boom my mouth hit the ground for walking towards me was Morten Harket. He saw me looking at him with my mouth wide open and my eyes bulging in shock as he passed me he smiled, nodded his head and said "hi". As 20 year old black male I certainly wasn't in the female teenage - 20s demographic "A -ha" mainly appealed to and TBH I was indifferent about them ,but I was completely blown away I couldn't stop smiling, no lie it really made my day.
There was a first version that was more punk than pop. That version failed to chart so they redid with more of a synth-pop vibe. It really did not take off well UNTIL the video that we just watched was introduced.
It's funny that she said that she's never seen anything like that today. Weezer did a cover of this song, and they used that same style in their version of the music video.
Check the William Hurt movie "Altered States",. There is a scene similar to the bouncing off the wall scene. Quite dramatic. Altered states was released in 1980. Aha's Take On Me was produced in 1984. William Hurts scene must have had an influence.
Iconic….thats what this is. Everyone, I mean everyone was talking about this music video when it came out. Just part of that 80s music that defined the decade. (Oh yeah, anytime you do a 70s thru early 90s song, especially 80s, the official music video is a must!) Amelia is absolutely adorable btw! …a late congratulations, haven’t seen y’all in a while. 😀
My favorite song and music video of all times! Released in 1985, the song became a big hit especially because of the video. MTV was playing the video in a heavy rotation in 1985. MTV also included the video on plenty of best videos of all times during the 1990s.
The first time I heard this song it was when I saw the video premier on MTV. As soon as I heard it I knew it was a hit song. His voice is amazing as is the video!
In the early 80s, it was easy to miss the few seconds of this same artwork drawing animation in Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" video, because it was mixed up with all kinds of stop motion animation. I like this one by A-Ha alot, because the animation is consistently integrated into the story.
Written by a-ha. This is the 2nd version, which is better than the 1984 version. Morten Harket has the high falsetto! 🤯 This song was sampled and appears in Feel This Moment. Suggested videos 📹: 1 Pitbull, Christina Aguilera and Morten Harket perform Feel This Moment 2 a-ha performs Train 🚆 of Thought.
You should see the "Literal Version" of the video in which they redub the lyrics to match what's going on in the actual video. It's a fun rabbit hole. 😅
In the video game The Last of Us Part 2 the character Ellie plays and sings an acoustic version to her girlfriend Dina. In the HBO tv version of the game you can hear it during the mall escalator scene in Episode 7 Left Behind and also in the official trailer. It's interesting how much more dramatic, sad and beautiful it is as an acoustic ballad like A-Ha did it on Unplugged than its original pop version.
I don't know if anybody's mentioned it but Weezer covered the song. The video is set in 1985 and the kid that plays Mike from stranger things is the lead singer of a GarageBand.
I've been watching for a long time now and I don't think I've heard or seen how these guys are linked. Are you related or just friends? Just curious is all. Awesome job guys, keep it up!
One of their songs that doesn't get much attention, but it should is Cry Wolf, you should check it out. P.S. you should react to Prince one of these days
These early video effects kind of remind me of ZZ Top's Rough Boy, especially in the beginning with the moving camera shots. That one would be worth checking out as well.
Have you done "summer moved on" by a-ha? If not i think you may like it, either the live version in Oslo or the official video. (I like the live version best)
