After nearly thirty years of pop music history, the internationally renowned Norwegian trio A-Ha has announced that its 2010 World Tour will be the last hurrah.
Formed in 1982, the group achieved superstardom with the release of their seminal album ‘Hunting High and Low’ in 1985 which featured the worldwide number one single ‘Take on me’. The album peaked at number 15 on the Billboard charts and earned the group a Grammy Award nomination for Best New Artist in 1986. The Norway Post has confirmed that the group’s final concert will be in Oslo next December; the culmination of the world tour.
The trio, comprising of lead vocalist Morten Harket, guitarist Paul Waaktaar and keyboardist Magne Furuholmen achieved several notable milestones in their career, including the legendary performance at Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana Stadium in 1992 which still holds the Guinness World Record for the highest attendance at a pay-for-entry concert, at 196,000 people. The band also played a Nobel Peace Prize concert in 1998 and was awarded the Q Inspiration Award in 2006 in recognition of their lasting musical influence.
A-Ha will best be remembered for ‘Take on Me’ which was the first music video to use a combination of pencil-sketch animation and live action called rotoscoping. The video became one of the most recognised and remembered music videos in pop history and won eight nominations in the 1986 MTV Video Awards including Best Direction, Best Special Effects , Best New Artist in a Video, Best Concept Video, and Viewer’s Choice. Their winning of six awards was twice as many as Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ video, which has been consistently voted best music video of all time.
Their latest album ‘Foot of The Mountain’ has seen the group experience a resurgence in popularity; but the boys have decided to end on a high note. The trio would like to thank their fans for helping them live the ultimate adventure and achieving career success that they never dreamed of. They also stated that they are retiring as a group, not as individuals, and hope to explore new challenges in all aspects of life including the possibility of humanitarian and political work.
To date, the group has released nine albums and numerous singles with combined sales of more than 70 million.
meanwhile Immortal were re-united…. :D
Unfortunately, I did not like much their fairly new All Shall Fall (I’d say it lacks of ‘pathos’, the grim atmosphere which covered past works)