Most of you will already know that a-ha are my favourite band, but not many of you will know why they are. This Norwegian trio were the hottest thing to hit the 80’s Pop scene in 1985 with their Scandinavian chiselled cheekbones and the catchiest of synthpop tunes Take on Me &. The Sun Always Shines On TV. Morten Harket’s soaring vocals spanning almost 5 octaves an unforgettable sound. A-ha! ...most of you Americans will say, “then they weren’t a one hit wonder, but a two hit wonder, because they disappeared after that”. Wrong....they had many other hits after that, just not in the USA, because they never wanted to be pop stars in the first place, but their Music Label, Warner took one look at them and decided that’s what they were going to be marketed as. The band decided they would keep their integrity, stay in Europe and diversify with the Rock and Blues numbers that were always what they had at their core. They have become a very successful band despite no support from the USA market, to date now having sold over 100 million units. Basically I love them, and have remained a fan for 35 years because they stand out from the crowd and are unafraid to be different from the other bands, both in their music and their individuality as people.

To illustrate how diverse and different a band they are, who are unafraid to tackle difficult societal issues such as prostitution, drug taking, loneliness and sadomasochism here is a video about the making of “Celice” a song on their 2005 Analogue album the video for which was filmed in a brothel. It is a great song which was released as a single in Europe and reached number one in several countries, although it wasn’t released by their new record label Polydor in the UK for some reason. This song had been considered for inclusion in the movie The Da Vinci Code, due to the use of the celice (an instrument which is a tight barbed metal band which religious penitents wear around their upper thigh) it’s use featured in the movie.