Songoftheday 8/22/14 - I reached inside myself and found nothing there to ease the pressure of my ever worrying mind...

a-ha - "The Sun Always Shines On TV"
from the album Hunting High And Low (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #20 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 8

Today's Song of the Day is by the Norwegian new wave trio a-ha, who claimed a worldwide smash with the song with the innovative animated/live video "Take On Me". For its follow-up the band released the frenetic and typically Scandinavian dark nuance of "The Sun Always Shines On TV". Written by the group's guitarist, Pal Waaktaar, the record again featured the dramatic vocals and striking good looks of lead singer Morten Harket in the video, which continues the plot from "Take On Me"...

"The Sun Always Shines..." became a-ha's second and final top-40 pop hit in the U.S. in February of 1986. The record did even better in the discos, peaking at #6 on Billboard's dance club play list (their first hit and biggest). Internationally, it was their first #1 single in Britain ("Take On Me" stopped at #2 there), as it also was in Ireland, and the song went top-10 in most of Europe like France (#10), Germany (#5), and Sweden (#2). Also, the video nabbed two MTV Music Video Awards in the same year "Take On Me" took home six trophies.

a-ha would continue to strike it big in Europe, with two more top ten hits in the UK from the debut album, "Train Of Thought" and the title track. The following year, the trio released their second album, Scoundrel Days, which remains one of my favorites of the decade. With a "bigger" sound and great songs, the record was a success in Europe, but somehow floundered in America, with first single "Cry Wolf" stopping at #50 (it went to #5 in England and #2 in their native Norway). The single released first in Europe, "I've Been Losing You", went to #1 there, and #8 in the UK.

In 1987 the band would be commissioned to record the theme to the James Bond movie The Living Daylights, the first to star Timothy Dalton in the role of the spy master. While the single was again a top ten success all over Europe, it was pretty much passed over in the U.S.

A-ha's success stayed in a more moderate stream through the next couple of decades, almost making the American pop chart again in 1993 with "Dark Is The Night". They had an even bigger resurgence in England in 2006, when the title track to their Analogue album reached the top-10 on the UK chart. The follow-up single "Cosy Prisons" was their final top-40 hit in Britain. Three years later, their song "Foot Of The Mountain" went to #3 in Germany. In 2010, they fittingly released "Butterfly, Butterfly (The Last Hurrah)", another top-40 hit in Germany, and the trio called it a day in 2011. They remain one of those new wave bands that were sorely underrated from their huge initial success, and their whole body of work remains the top of Europe's best of the era.

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In 2003, a-ha released a live version of "The Sun Always Shines On TV" as a single, and hit the German chart at #53...

The same year, Belgian rave band Milk Inc. covered the track, which went to #5 in their home country, as well as nicking the chart in Germany and the Netherlands...

Danish electropop duo Electric Lady Lab interpolating the record into their single "Touch Me", which went to #19 in 2011 in their native country. Morten provided backup and was animated in the video...