YMMV / a-ha

• Award Snub: The video for "Take on Me" is one of the most awarded videos at the MTV Video Music Awards with 8 Moonmen. However, it did not win Video of the Year as the jury picked Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" (an equally good video, but one that has slightly aged and is not as iconic).
• Awesome Music:
  • "Take on Me" and "The Living Daylights" are among their most recognized songs.
  • "Summer Moved On" shows how Morten Harket can hold a single note for 23 seconds nonstop.
• Covered Up: "Crying in the Rain", arguably.
• First Installment Wins: "Take on Me", "The Sun Always Shines on T.V.", and "Train Of Thought" are actually a trilogy of videos all following the same very loose story and featuring the same rotoscoped art in one way or another. Now go ask everybody who has seen the video for "Take on Me" if they even know a-ha released other songs altogether. Go on, we'll wait.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • They have a huge Brazilian fanbase, and their songs (yes, not just "Take on Me") still receive airplay in local adult contemporary radio stations.
  • A large part of their contemporary fanbase is from South Korea, with most comments found on official YouTube uploads of their songs reading in Korean.
• Moment of Awesome: The 1991 Rock in Rio performance, where they set the world record for the largest-ever audience attendance at a paid concert (approximately 196,000 people), outclassing bands and artists considered far larger at the time. Despite this, however, they were ignored by the media at the time.
  • Waaktaar-Savoy said that reporters weren't allowed to report this event, which the band blamed for the lack of media attention for this crowning achievement, but turned into a rather, crushing disappointment.
  • Kurt Loder, who was with MTV News at the time, has mentioned in interviews that he was impressed by the audience that a-ha drew at Rock In Rio and had wanted to report on the feat in his news segments, but the top brass at MTV, who was then very much into promoting Guns N' Roses practically 24/7, would not allow him to.
• Narm:
  • The rather Purple Prose-y and cheesy lyrics of "Stay on These Roads". The melody itself is pretty, though.
  • Also, Morten should've really left the Big "NO!" out of the first chorus in "Manhattan Skyline".
• Signature Song: "Take on Me", both due to it being the band's most successful single and due to its memorable Concept Video.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The synth-drum part from "Hurry Home" sounds quite similar to 1979 song "Lucifer".
• Tear Jerker:
  • "Manhattan Skyline", if you ignore the narmy Big "NO!" that Morten lets out in the first chorus.
  • The video for "The Sun Always Shines on T.V.", in which the lovers reunited at the end of "Take on Me" are separated since the dude must return to the comic strip world, leaving his girlfriend all heartbroken.
  • "Slender Frame", due to its lyrics about a man urging his ex to leave him alone being so damn depressing.
  • Their final video "Butterfly Butterfly (The Last Hurrah)", where the three embrace at the end, turning into paper butterflies and flying off.
  • Their cover of The Everly Brothers' "Crying In The Rain," which was already miserable, but even sadder as a "new romantic" song.
  • "Under The Makeup", the dreadfully depressing first single off "Cast In Steel", is about a man lamenting not so much the breakdown of his relationship but the fact that they can't go back to the way they were when they first met, to that level of love and happiness.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The entire animated sequence in "Take on Me"

---