Hunting High and Low (1985)

Hunting High and Low is the debut studio album by the Norwegian synth-pop band a-ha, first released on 1 June 1985 by Warner Bros. Records in Norway and the United States, and then released in the United Kingdom and Europe on 28 October 1985. The album was a huge commercial success, reaching high positions on charts worldwide. The album was recorded at Eel Pie Studios in Twickenham, London, and produced by Tony Mansfield, John Ratcliff and Alan Tarney.

In all, five singles from the album were released, though not all were released internationally: "Take On Me", "Love Is Reason", "The Sun Always Shines on T.V.", "Train of Thought" and the title track. The group was nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards in 1986, making a-ha the first Norwegian band to be nominated for a Grammy.

As part of a re-release of their first two studio albums, Hunting High and Low was expanded and remastered in 2010.

Music

"Take On Me" was the first single released by the band. An early version was recorded and released in late 1984 with an early music video. The song became a No. 3 hit in a-ha's native Norway but failed to chart in the United Kingdom. The band went back into the studio to re-record the song for the Hunting High and Low album, but a second UK release in early 1985 was again ignored. Before releasing their single in the United States, the band undertook the production of a new music video for the song, working with director Steve Barron. Barron had previously created hit videos for Toto, Thomas Dolby, Culture Club, Madonna and Michael Jackson, but the a-ha video was unlike any of his earlier work. A plot-driven amalgamation of live action and rotoscope-style animation by husband-and-wife team Michael Patterson and Candace Reckinger, it drew inspiration from Patterson's animated film Commuter and the film Altered States. The innovative video for "Take On Me" was first broadcast on local Boston music video station V-66, and soon after given heavy rotation on MTV.

The single debuted in Billboard the week of 13 July 1985, and was heading into the US top twenty when it was given an international release, including a second release in Norway and a third shot at the UK market. It hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, spending 27 weeks on the charts and becoming the tenth-biggest single of 1985, and this time going to number two in the United Kingdom and number one in Norway.

The second single for most of the world was "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." ("Love Is Reason" had failed to hit the Norwegian Top 40 earlier in the year), and the band followed its massively successful music video with another critically acclaimed clip for the song. Starting off as a sequel of sorts, Harket breaks away from his happy ending to join his band in performance amidst mannequins at a rural church, Saint Albans in Teddington, London, which has since become an art gallery. "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." improved upon the first single's success in the United Kingdom, hitting number one and remaining there for two weeks in January 1986. It was a top-10 hit nearly everywhere it was released except in the United States, where it peaked at No. 20 and would be the band's last major hit to date in that country. The track was remixed as a dance version, which was a top-5 hit on the US Dance Singles Sales chart, and B-side to the single and remix was the otherwise unreleased "Driftwood."

"Train of Thought" saw limited release as the third single in Europe. It was not released as a 7" in the United States but received rock radio play and a set of remixes again made the dance charts. Waaktaar based the lyrics for this song on existentialist authors and poets Gunvor Hofmo, Knut Hamsun and Fyodor Dostoevsky, his favourites at the time. It was a-ha's third consecutive Top 10 single in the United Kingdom and Ireland, reaching Nos. 8 and 5 respectively, and charting well in Germany and Sweden. World sales hit 500,000 copies.

The last single from the album was "Hunting High and Low", released in June 1986. The single saw its highest chartings in France, where it peaked at number four, and the United Kingdom, where it was number five. The single was released in the United States but did not make the Hot 100. An extended version was available on 12" vinyl, but the midtempo track did not see dance chart success.

The "Take On Me" video was nominated for eight 1986 MTV Video Music Awards, and at the third annual ceremony 5 September 1986, the video won six awards, including Best New Artist and Viewer's Choice. "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." was nominated for an additional three awards, winning two, for a total of eight wins. Even as the total number of categories has nearly doubled, only Peter Gabriel has won as many of the awards in a single year, for "Sledgehammer" and "Big Time", also featuring innovative use of animation.

The band went on a world tour for the album from June 1986 to February 1987, visiting 16 countries and 113 cities.