User:Frcm1988/Sandbox3

Background
Norwegian guitarist Pål Waaktaar, and keyboardist Magne Furuholmen began their music careers playing in a band called Bridges, together with Viggo Bondi and Øystein Jevanord. In 1981 the band produced Fakkeltog, an LP for which all of the music was composed by the group themselves, most of it being written by Waaktaar. Soon after, Bridges disbanded. Waaktaar and Furuholmen relocated to London to try their hand in the music industry there, but after six months of disappointments they returned to Norway. The duo decided to try to get Morten Harket to join them as lead singer. At the time, Harket was singing in a band called Souldier Blue, but he felt that his band was stagnating, and decided to join Waaktaar and Furuholmen to form a-ha in September 1982. They stayed together for six months in Asker, writing some songs and working on demo tapes.

Writing process
The first demo that Waaktaar and Furuholmen played to Harket when they recruited him was called "The Juicy Fruit Song", that later morphed into a tune called "Panorama", he recalled: "It reminded me of an advert for chewing gum that went: “Juicy Fruit is a packet full of sunshine.” That influenced the verse melody. Paul had the idea of really using my vocal range in the chorus, having notes rising in octaves like Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra. With Harket’s input, the song evolved into "Lesson One". In January 1983 the trio relocated to London in search of recording a contract and began calling on record companies and publishing houses.

After a few meetings with various A&R personnel, the band signed with a publishing house called Lionheart. a-ha then returned to Norway to earn some money. When they returned to London, they left Lionheart out of frustration. They decided to record new demos, and chose Rendezvous Studios of musician and producer John Ratcliff, intending to re-record five songs. The band signed with Ratcliff, who in return introduced them to his manager, Terry Slater. With this encouragement, the band managed to complete some songs, including an early version of "Take on Me". After a few meetings, Slater signed them with Warner Bros. Records in December 1983.

First and second version
The band met with Tony Mansfield, an expert in the use of computerized synthesizers, who mixed the demos with electronic instrumentation at the Eel Pie Recording Studios in Twickenham. The band and Warner Brothers were not pleased with the sound, so producer‑engineer Neill King was called to remix the album again. He worked on the bed tracks, overdubbing guitars, vocals, backing vocals and added extra synths. Then he did the mix, while Ratcliff supervised the sessions. King used a SSL E-series console and a Studer A800 to record the album’s songs to a two-inch tape. During this time "Lesson One" was renamed "All's Well That Ends Well and Moves With the Sun" and later "Take on Me". Harket sang using a Beyer 201 and a Neumann FET 47 microphone placed next to each other. Waaktaar played a Gibson 335 electric guitar while everything was sequenced by a Synclavier, which was also used as a drum machine, with a mixture of synthesized and live samples. A Lexicon 224X and an AMS RMX16 were used for the reverberation effects, and a RMX15 for stereo delay. The finish result was a less-electro take of the song, inspired by The Doors. King commented about the session: All of the tapes I worked on for "Take On Me" were from Eel Pie, and they kept a lot of the synth bits from Tony Mansfield's work, but nearly everything else was re-cut from scratch. I’d say Pål was the main technology guy, and we worked long hours, cranking out the overdubs. You get a feel for when a band has something special going for it—a-ha knew they were really hot, so it was just a matter of getting their music across. The melody, the lyrics, the whole sound of the thing just gelled.

The band rushed to release "Take on Me" as a single in the United Kingdom and Continental Europe on October 1984. It became a hit in Norway, but failed to make an impact abroad. After this, Warner Brothers' main office in the United States decided to invest in the band, and gave them the opportunity to re-record the song.

Third version
British record producer Alan Tarney was originally contacted by Slater in early 1984 to produce the band's debut album, Hunting High and Low. Tarney recalled: "For some reason, after it had been agreed that I would produce the album, it turned out I couldn't do it. So I told Terry Slater this and, at that point, he brought in Tony Mansfield". A year later Warner Brothers contacted Tarney to re-record "Take on Me" and told him that they were willing to go over-budget to get it right. The band and the producer recorded and mixed the enire song at RG Jones Studios in Wimbledon. Tarney used a Roland Juno-60 synthesizer for the song's main theme together with a UMI computer system and a LinnDrum programmed by Waaktaar as the equipment. Furuholmen played the main melody through the Juno-60 and a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer; then Tarney listened to Waaktaar and Furuholmen playing PPG Wave keyboards in the control room, he commented: "[...] that's where the magic seemed to come from. It was a very atmospheric, live recording". Both of them recorded their parts directly in the control room.

Unlike Mansfield's and King's versions, Tarney wanted the record to sound similar to the demo. First he did a drum track as a guide that engineer Gerry Kitchingham mixed on two tracks. Then, the stereo guide drums and other guides were recorded, including Harket's vocal. The main riff sound was done with the Roland Juno-60 synthesizer, and all of the instruments were MIDI'd, while the effects—reverb, delay—were produced by Kitchingham's or Tarney's outboard gear. This allowed them to sample snare sounds and combine them with the LinnDrum sounds for more realism. The Linn sound was compressed quite heavily by Kitchingham to "get a very slappy feel". At the same time Waaktaar overdubbed real cymbals and hi-hat in the studio to add some clarity and obtain a live feel. After the track was completed, Harket recorded his vocals using a Neumann U47 microphone, a Neve microphone preamplifier and a Neve equalizer. According to Tarney, only a few takes were requiered because of Harket's "amazing range" and the expressiveness and versatility in his vocals. Kitchingham added some reverb from the Lexicon 224 and a repeat echo for the part with Harket's high falsetto. Finally, Tarney sang the backing vocals with the band into the same microphone.

Critical response
Number one on Rolling Stone list of "Top 10 One-Hit Wonders of All Time". Number three on VH1's "100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the '80s" list.

Rolling Stone called it "the little Norwegian synth-pop song that could", and added that "few pop singles have the lasting legacy of this one".

John Bergstrom of PopMatters called it "of the most thrilling, indelible songs of the era" and praised the "giddy synth hook and Morten Harket’s ultra-falsetto".

Brent Mann, in his book 99 Red Balloons... said that "it's no exaggeration to call this song a genuine 80s touchstone, a musical icon of the MTV Generation".

Jon Pareles of The New York Times said that it is "a perky electropop single with a startling chorus". About Harket's falsetto he commented, "is a change from earthly to ethereal, from masculine to androgynous. And it has echoed through Scandinavian pop".

Keith Tuber of the Orange Coast magazine called it "a melodic if sappy tune that garnered more than its share of radio airplay".

In his review for the Houston Chronicle, Rick Shefchik was critical of the group, he commented: "I dismissed these lightweights as British pretty boys, but a reader informed me they are actually from Norway. That hardly excuses them."

Sylvia Patterson of the NME called it one of the 80s "class-pop anthems".

Chuck Eddy of Entertainment Weekly called it "miraculous" and added that "Harket's croon sailed toward the horizon with the abandon of a bright-eyed prep-school grad anticipating great days ahead".

Tim DiGravia of Allmusic characterized the song as "a new wave classic laced with rushing keyboards, made emotionally resonant thanks to Morten Harket's touching vocal delicacy".

Chart performance
King's version of "Take on Me" was released in Europe on October 1984. It became a hit in Norway, reaching the third position of the VG-lista singles chart and stayed sixteen weeks in total, but failed to make any impact in the rest of the continent, only appearing on the UK Singles Chart at number 137. After this, Warner Brothers' main office in the United States decided to invest in the band, and gave them the opportunity to re-record the song with Tarney as the producer. The single was re-released in the UK on April 1985, but the label's office in London gave them little support, and the single flopped for the second time.

In the US, Warner invested in a second video to promote "Take on Me", which used Tarney's version of the song. Wide exposure on MTV made the song quickly debut on the Billboard Hot 100 at number ninety-one in July 1985. The song peaked at number one on the Hot 100 Airplay chart for two weeks, and at number three on Hot Singles Sales chart, topping the Hot 100 for one week in October 1985. It remained on the chart for twenty-seven weeks, and ended up at the tenth position of the 1985 Year-End chart. "Take on Me" had some crossover success, peaking at number thirty-six on the Hot Dance Singles Sales chart, and at number four on the Adult Contemporary chart. As of June 2014, the song has sold 1,463,000 digital copies in the country after it became available for download.

number one in Australia

number one in Italy

Development
Two videos were made for "Take on Me". The first release of the song in October 1984, which used the take recorded by King, had a simple low-budget video that shows the band singing against a blue background interspersed with scenes of female acrobats performing flips. According to Furuholmen, this version of the video had no concept, he commented: "I think we were just kinda like [...] 'oh, we must have a video, and just stick a camera in front of the band and see what happens'". The single flopped and was released for a second time in the UK, but also failed to chart. After this, Warner Brothers' executive Jeff Ayeroft put the group on high priority, and made the move to invest £100,000 on a new video for the song. Steve Barron was hired to direct the video, he recalls:

"Warners said they had these young good-looking guys from Norway with a good pop song and that they really believed in them. They said, 'we'll give you as long as you want and we'll release it when you've finished it'."

Simon Fields of Limelight Productions produced the video, Oliver Stapleton was in charge of the cinematography, and Michael Patterson and Candace Reckinger did the animation. Warner contacted Patterson on the strength of a five-minute short that he made in school called Commuter, which depicted a businessman navigating taxis and trains in a comic-book style. "Take on Me" was filmed on a soundstage and at Kim's Café, located in Wandsworth, London in 1985. It used a pencil-sketch animation/live-action combination called rotoscoping—originally designated for the "Train of Thought" music video —in which the live-action footage is traced-over frame by frame to give the characters realistic movements. After every scene was filmed in London, Patterson took approximately 3000 still photographs from the tapes, from which he created the sketch animations over the individual frames, a process that took sixteen weeks to be completed.

Synopsis
The video's main theme is a romantic-fantasy narrative, while the concept is based on a comic book Barron read as a child. It begins with a young woman, played by Bunty Bailey, drinking coffee and reading a comic book in a coffee shop. The comic is about motorcycle racing in which the hero played by Morten Harket is pursued by two opponents, one of them played by actor Philip Jackson. As the girl reads, the waitress brings her the bill. The hero, after winning the race, seemingly winks at the girl from the page. His pencil-drawn hand reaches out of the comic book, inviting the girl into it. Once inside, she too appears in the pencil-drawn form, as he sings to her and introduces her to his black and white world.

Meanwhile in the restaurant the waitress returns and believes the girl skipped the bill. Angrily, she crumples and throws the girl's comic-book into a trash-bin. This makes the hero's two opposing drivers reappear, armed with a large wrench and apparently aggressive. Harket punches one of the thugs and retreats with the girl into a maze of paper. Arriving at a dead end, Harket tears a hole in the paper wall so that the girl can escape as he faces the two thugs as one brings the wrench down on him. The girl, now found lying beside the trash-bin to the surprise of restaurant guests and staff, grabs the comic-book from the bin and runs home, where she attempts to smooth out the creases to learn what happens next. The next panel shows Harket lying seemingly lifeless, and she begins to cry. But he wakes up and attempts to break out of his comic-book frames. At the same time, his image appears in the girl's hallway, seemingly torn between real and comic form as he maintains the effort to break his barriers. He escapes from the comic book by becoming human and stands up. Smiling, the girl walks towards him and he embraces her. The idea of going in and out of different dimensions in the final scene, is based on the 1980 movie Altered States.

Release and reception
The second video for "Take on Me" was released in dance clubs and television networks across the US in June 1985, a month before the record was available in stores or played on the radio. In less than two weeks, cable television network MTV put "Take on Me" into heavy rotation; and in July, 200 movie theaters played the clip during projections of the movies Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Back to the Future, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Following its release, the video received positive reactions from critics and nominations to numerous awards. Rolling Stone called the video a "sterling proof that style doesn't require an actual human presence—dizzying illustrations of a perfect man, like fashion drawings reified, will suit just fine." The magazine also commented that Harket "held all the attributes of the exemplary 80s American-bred pop star" and that the video was "exquistely rendered by director Steve Barron in a pioneering 'rotoscoping' technique." Keith Tuber of the Orange Coast magazine said that "it was really the group's video that sparked the hoopla, and that's the area in which the band excelled". Billboard's Moira McCormick called it "neat", while Norm Elrod of CMJ New Music Monthly said that it "one of the most amazing videos ever". David Mansour, author of From Abba to Zoom called it "one of the best-loved videos of MTV's first decade". Russell Mulcahy, one of the most prominent music video directors of the 1980s, who worked with Elton John, Duran Duran, Bonnie Tyler and many others, commented that the video "was absolutely groundbreaking. Just extraordinary. Probably the most creative video I'd ever seen."

At the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards, the video for "Take on Me" won six awards—Best New Artist in a Video, Best Concept Video, Most Experimental Video, Best Direction, Best Special Effects, and Viewer's Choice—and was nominated for two others, Best Group Video and Video of the Year. MTV later ranked it the fourteenth best video ever. "Take on Me" won seven of the eight nominations it received on the 7th Billboard Video Music Awards: Best Direction, Best Editing, Best Special Effects, Best New Artist, Best Conceptual, Most Innovative, and Best Overall Video. It was also nominated for Pop/Rock Video at the 13th American Music Awards, and ranked fourth on Village Voice's 1985 "Pazz & Jop" critics' poll, conducted by music journalist Robert Christgau. In Europe, "Take on Me" was named the Best Videoclip of 1985 at the first International Music & Media Conference (IMMC) held in Montreux, Switzerland; and the Top Music Video Clip of 1985 in a ceremony organized by the British magazine Music Week. In a 1998 survey by VH1, 100,000 British viewers voted "Take on Me" the third greatest pop video of all time. The same channel placed it at number eight on its "100 Greatest Videos" list in 2001. The video placed at number two on Slant Magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Music Videos", was listed on Pitchfork Media's "100 Awesome Music Videos", in 2006, and ranked fourth on Stylus Magazine's "Top 100 Music Videos of All Time" list. In a poll conducted by Billboard in 2011, it was voted the fourth best music video of the 1980s. It placed at four on Rolling Stones list of the "Best Music Videos of All Time", and was included on Times "All-TIME Best Music Videos" list.

Literal version
"Take on Me" was the first example of the literal music video Internet meme, a parody of an official music video clip in which the original lyrics have been replaced with lyrics that describe the visuals in the video. Filmmaker and musician Dustin McLean posted in his YouTube account a redub of the video in October 2008, and had more than 800,000 views during the first week. McLean, who worked on the animated SuperNews! show on Current TV, stated that the idea for literal videos came about from an inside joke with his fellow workers, and that two of his co-workers along with his wife helped to provide the new vocal lyrics. After "Take on Me"'s literal video appeared, more than 100 different videos were posted in the first year, from users all over the world, including foreign language entries. In a Rolling Stone interview, Furuholmen commented about the literal version of the video, "I thought it was fucking fantastic. It was amazing. I wish we'd have that video back when we made it. The lyrics make so much more sense than the one we have."

Cover versions
American band Cap'n Jazz made an emo cover of the song for their 1998 two-disc set Analphabetapolothology. Nick Mirov of Pitchfork Media called it "mildly amusing". Punknews.org called it a "rockin cover". The New Pornographers member Carl Newman recorded a cover of the song on the 2009 Starbucks-sponsored compliation album Sweetheart: Our Favorite Artists Sing Their Favorite Love Songs. Entertainment Weekly praised the cover and called it "folkie and ethereal, heavy on the acoustic guitar, and light on anything resembling '80s synth-pop". In 1995, punk rock band MxPx included this song on their album of covers, On the Cover.

Danish experimental pop music band Slaraffenland covered the song for their Sunshine EP. Mehan Jayasuriya of Popmatters praise them for their "originality", but felt that it was "less compelling" than Reel Big Fish's version. German eurodance duo Captain Jack covered the song for their debut album The Mission. Spanish folk singer Anni B Sweet did a cover in 2009 for Ministry of Sound's album A Unique Collection Of Cool Covers.

Live performance by the Jonas Brothers. Argentinian electro pop band Miranda! included a live cover in their 2005 album En Vivo Sin Restricciones. Japanese-American singer-songwriter Hikaru Utada covered the song on her Bohemian Summer 2000 Tour. It was included on the Bohemian Summer 2000 DVD. Madonna did a cover of the song in a Latin style on the eleventh season of American variety show Saturday Night Live, in a sketch called El Spectaculare De Marika.

Reel Big Fish version
In 1999, ska punk band Reel Big Fish covered "Take on Me" for the film BASEketball. The cover was released on the BASEketball soundtrack and on the international version of the band's third studio album Why Do They Rock So Hard?; and they also performed it at concerts. Reel Big Fish released a music video for "Take On Me", directed by Jeff Moore, and features the band playing the song while walking down an aisle in the stadium, and playing a game of BASEketball interlaced with clips from the film. An alternative video for the song's international release that contained only the stadium aisle footage was also released.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine said that the cover was one the album's "highlights" and descibed it as "irksome" and "skadelic". Patrick Schabe of Popmatters said that the cover "reaffirmed" his "conviction that Reel Big Fish are one of the world's best cover bands".

A1 version
In August 2000, British-Norwegian boy band A1 released a cover of "Take on Me" for their second studio album The A List. Despite being panned by music critics, who called it a "lame cover version", and a "note for note copy" that seems like "a re-release of the original";

Music video
The cover's music video was directed by Stuart Gosling and inspired by the 1982 science fiction film TRON. Over 190 minutes of film was shot of the band suspended on Kirby wires against a green screen, and tracked using a programme called Equaliser, while all the environments were created on computer. It features A1 entering the computer world by putting on virtual reality glasses after finding out about a deadly computer virus. After flying for a distance, they find the virus and destroy it, saving the world.