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Finally a music journalist who understands what a brilliant band A-ha is...... With Thanks to Morten Øvestad ....................................................................................................................................................... You can't go wrong with A-ha ANDREW EATON My first encounter with Keane, who are now all over the charts like a rash, was an NME single review early last year. "Kid A-era Radiohead covering A-ha," it said. It’s a comparison that seems to have stuck. "The character of [Tom] Chaplin’s high register brings to mind A-ha’s Morten Harket," agreed the Independent’s Andy Gill, while stroking his chin. Chaplin "sounds not unlike Thom Yorke fronting A-Ha," thought Virgin.net, who were in no way just copying ideas from proper music journalists. Soon the A-ha comparison was spreading across the globe, to Spain ("Y comparó a Keane con la era Kid-A de Radiohead con reminiscencias de A-ha") and Germany ("Radiohead aus der Kid-A Zeit covern A-ha"). In France, an A-ha fan website has shown an interest in "le groupe Keane", noting that "Un de ces groupes dont la source d’inspiration a été ces garçons en jeans troués de A-ha," possibly the first review to suggest that Keane are influenced by A-ha’s trousers as well as their music. I’m very happy that Keane are doing so well, because Hunting High and Low by A-ha was the first album I ever bought. Thanks to a £5 WHSmiths gift voucher I was the laughing stock of a school full of Smiths and New Order fans for about a year. And yes, I soon loved those bands too, as every teenager should, but the experience has left me determined to champion A-ha at every opportunity. And hey, here comes one now. Will Keane introduce A-ha to today’s teens the way Gary Jules did Tears for Fears? I hope so. It’s about time A-ha got some respect, since there was always far more to them than orchids and leather wristbands. Women of a certain age will know exactly what I’m talking about here; if you don’t, find one and ask them, since I have better things to talk about. Such as: why are Coldplay and Radiohead never compared to A-ha since they sound like them in exactly the same way Keane do (soaring falsetto vocals, complicated sad-sounding chords, bleak yet somehow hopeful lyrics)? Perhaps it took this long for all those A-ha fans to 1) get jobs reviewing music, and 2) have done it long enough to feel it was safe to enthuse about A-ha without getting sacked. Personally I always thought Radiohead sounded like A-ha. Not the A-ha of Touchy or Cry Wolf, I admit, but with different arrangements Scoundrel Days or Living a Boy’s Adventure Tale could easily slot on The Bends. "Have you gone insane?" I hear some of you cry. "A-ha were a 1980s boy band. Radiohead made OK Computer." You may think that. But how many boy bands could get into the top ten with a single about murdering your girlfriend (I’ve Been Losing You, which includes the lyric: "I did it all so coldly, almost slowly, plain for all to see"?) or one about a man bleeding to death (The Blood that Moves the Body)? Or there’s Soft Rains of April, about being in jail - possibly as a result of I’ve Been Losing You. Sycamore Leaves is about a man convinced there’s a body hidden under a pile of leaves outside his house. Death, pain and loss are everywhere. Every A-ha album, without exception, ends with heartbreak. Most people remember Hunting High and Low for the singles The Sun Always Shines on TV and Take On Me, but it closes with Here I Stand and Face the Rain ("I fear what tomorrow brings," sang Harket gloomily). The East of the Sun album - the one with Crying in the Rain on it - ends with (Seemingly) Non Stop July, a song about the terror of growing old of which Coldplay would be proud. The most recent, Lifelines, finishes with a song called Solace. "You’re hoping for solace. Well, just look around. Everyone here is standing in line." Even Radiohead rarely get that bleak. At home in Norway, A-ha are an institution and Magne Furuholmen, the one all the girls I knew fancied, is an artist who has numerous exhibitions and an official Norwegian stamp to his name. Here, we give lifetime achievement awards to Duran Duran. Please excuse me now, I have work to do. |