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THE STAGE — If you were lucky enough to live part of your growing up years in the '80s, you got to hear and experience so much great music as it hit the scene.
Those new wave kids were synth popping and goth rocking their little hearts out, and we were dancing in our rooms using hairbrushes as microphones (if our big sisters would let us, anyway, but I digress).
One of the most recognizable songs from 1985 is arguably the hit “Take on Me” from Norwegian band a-ha. It’s high energy with a great synthesizer melody that is now playing in your head. Plus, the original music video was an '80s masterpiece of mixed live-action and pencil animation. I encourage you to revisit it here while keeping in mind that many hearts have swooned while watching the video.
Thirty-two years later, a-ha covered their hit song in this video for an upcoming movie and album release called “MTV Unplugged Summer Solstice”. (Yes, MTV Unplugged still exists, suggesting they might still care about music.)
As the word “unplugged” suggests, the band strips down “Take on Me” in the video to an acoustic level. But they also slow it down and take their time, which puts the focus more on the lyrics.
The results are melancholy and a bit haunting but absolutely worth the watch and listen. Personally, I was nervous that lead singer Morten Harket would be a bad live singer, butchering his own hit, but that is not the case. It may help that he doesn’t go for that high note as he sings “for a day or two-o-o-o!””
