Scoundrel days --- a-ha --- 1986 (Warner Bros)
I briefly touched upon this, as I did all their albums, when a-ha formed the subject for my second "Taking centre stage" feature way back in 2011, but it's one of their seminal albums, and I always meant to look into it in more depth, which is what I intend to do now. Though the band are now gone, broken up after over twenty-five years of creating great music, they left behind them some incredible albums, and though they will forever be dogged as "that band that did
Take on me" there was so much more to them than that one pop song, popular as it was. What a lot of people who don't know them won't, er, know, is that a-ha had some very deep and serious material, and were not really in any way the typical pop or chart band, despite having two number one singles and a slew of other hits. Despite releasing nine studio albums though, their heyday centred around the first three, with their big hits coming from the first two albums, and by 1990, when their fourth was released, they were consigned to the bargain bin of music history, a sad state of affairs and something they did not as a band deserve.
This however comes from their "golden period", when a-ha could really do no wrong. Riding high on the success of "Hunting high and low", their debut and that phenomenally successful hit single, the boys from Oslo came back with an album that far from being a pop followup desperate to cash-in on and capitalise upon the triple platinum status of the debut, comes across as a mature, well-constructed record that just happens to rain hit singles like a typical day in Ireland. It's one of my favourite a-ha albums, only beaten out for top spot by 2005's "Analogue", which I already reviewed. While it's not perfect, it's about as close to it as any a-ha album comes, with only two weak tracks (which could almost be cut to one) and the rest of the songs are so good that they more than compensate for the odd filler.
The album opens with the title track, with a running piano line and synth, then Morten Harkett's voice comes in low but with a sense of urgency as he asks
"Was that somebody screaming? / It wasn't me for sure" and there's an ominous sound about the music as it builds, guitar coming in and then hard percussion, then for the chorus it kicks up in tempo and Morton's voice gets stronger and more powerful. I hear a sense of Alex Lifeson in Pal Waaktar's rocky guitar, great heavy drumwork and a lovely piece of orchestral strings with cellos and violins softening but not lessening the tone as the song goes on. It's a powerful opener and ends with a real punch on Harkett's pained vocal and strong synth from Mags Furuholmen, and takes us into "The swing of thing" on bright piano and bouncy bass with a sort of dancy vibe to it. Percussion from Michael Sturgis frames the middle eighth as the keys of Mags take the melody, with Pal's guitar chiming out in an uptempo, poppy manner while Morten's voice rises above it all; one of the most powerful voices in pop music at the time.
Halfway through the whole thing slows down on the back of soft, lush synth from Mags and Morten's voice drops back in tandem, then the rhythm and tempo slowly come back up, the percussion resurging, Pal's guitar stabbing through the melody and injecting a feel of rock back into it, and the big finish then is a joy to hear as Morten's voice gets rawer, more angry as he snaps
"What have I done?/ What lies I have told! / I've played games with the ones/ That rescued my soul!" and on a big synth and drum roll the song ends. Drums then kick in one of the hit singles taken from this album, the rocker "I've been losing you" with bops along really well, with a great vocal performance from Morten and some great backing vocals. Quite guitar driven compared to previous tracks, it is one of the rockiest on the album. There's a great build up and then a false ending before the drums hammer back in and the song fades out, perhaps a little unsatisfyingly, it has to be said.
After all that power, we slow right down for the first ballad, and "October" is about as slow and laidback as you can get. Opening on soft wind sounds and distant chiming bells, with a gentle percussion that sounds almost like a distant steam train, it's built on an orchestral-sounding keyboard line from Mags and an almost muttered vocal from Morten, with trumpet and organ sounds meshing in the synth, thumping but almost castanet-style drums. This song demonstrates ably that Harkett can rise to the highest registers, belting out a powerful line, but is equally adept at making his mark with the barest of whispers; truly a unique voice. Some whistling complements the singing and the synthy trumpets as well as Pal's little almost unnoticed guitar touches, and the track ends on an expelled breath and the sound of rushing traffic as we move into another hit single, "Manhattan skyline".
With an almost harpsichordal piano intro and synth backup, it features another understated vocal performance by Harkett until Waaktaar's guitar snarls in, changing the whole thing, powerful percussion thumping in and Mags' synth squeaking almost in alarm as the tension in the song increases. Harkett's voice rises to meet this change, becoming powerful, soulful and lovelorn at once, crying to the wind almost, a man lost but not without hope. The song features a great guitar solo from Pal Waaktaar, and a slow and powerful ending, leading into yet another hit, the bouncy, poppy "Cry wolf", which would become a favourite in discos and clubs across Europe. An almost proggy synth opening soon metamorphoses into a dancy pop song with a great hook, though the chorus could possibly have been thought about a lot more:
"Cry wolf/ Oooh!/ Time to worry!" Not for a-ha though, as it became a big hit single for them and raised their profile, although perhaps reinforcing the idea that they wrote all their songs like "Take on me" in certain quarters. There's a deal of progressive rock in Furuholmen's synthwork though, and some stellar drumming.
This is however where the songs begin to disappoint a little, and "We're looking for the whales" is a bit silly, though the melody is nice. A big heavy bass gets us underway and some nice effects, but then the chorus gets just totally poppy and quite throwaway, with a lyric that makes it difficult to know what the song is supposed to be about
:
"We're looking for / A little bewildered girl/ We're looking for the whales" --- er, yeah. There's not too much to recommend this song really, other than the fact that it's nowhere near as bad as "Maybe maybe". But before that we have a much better song, in the frankly excellent "The weight of the wind", which just screams class. With a fast, almost funky keyboard and bass line, quite new-wave in its sound, reminding me of Depeche Mode or some band like that, it features another low-key vocal from Harkett, with rolling percussion and sprightly keys, a dramatic atmosphere and some great guitar work from Waaktaar.
But we can't unfortunately avoid it forever, and "Maybe maybe" is up next. Sigh. Building on the pop sound of "Cry wolf", and something of the melody from "We're looking for the whales", it's probably the worst track --- hell with that, it
is the worst track! --- on the album, and almost embarrassingly bad. It's a real pity, because without it, and if you could see the occasional flashes of brilliance in "We're looking for the whales" and accept it as a "not bad" track, then this could be an album of nothing but high spots, but the reggae-flavoured pop tune just takes the quality down to almost zero. Thankfully it's not long, just over two and a half minutes, with a sub-Genesis eighties keyboard riff and annoying clashing drumming, bit of nice jangly guitar, but it's so different --- and not in a good way --- to the other songs on the album that you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a cover, or written by someone outside the band, but not so.
Luckily the album recovers from this minor bump and finishes in glorious fashion with the dramatic yet gentle ballad "Soft rains of April", with a rolling drumbeat that starts in the distance and then comes up in the mix, dragging with it Mags' sonorous synthesiser melody and joined by Morten's gentle, almost breathy voice, the song moving at a stately pace with a real sense of grandeur. When Morten sings
"Is it raining back home? / I'm so alone!" you really feel for him. Great piano solo from Mags, backed with lush synth and then the drums pound back in and Morten's voice takes off much more strongly, wounded and alone, crying out his frustration, and the song ends on his acapella whisper:
"Over." Stupendous.
TRACKLISTING
1. Scoundrel days
2. The swing of things
3. I've been losing you
4. October
5. Manhattan skyline
6. Cry wolf
7. We're looking for the whales
9. The weight of the wind
10. Maybe maybe
11. Soft rains of April
The heart and devotion put into this album is nothing short of stunning. It is of course often the case that a band's second album will eclipse their debut, and this certainly happened here. Though "Hunting high and low" had the big hit single on it (and yielded others) I found it a little hit-and-miss; while I wasn't disappointed with it exactly I find I play it a lot less all the way through, whereas "Scoundrel days" I can run regularly, even despite the one or two weaker tracks. It's part as I said of a trilogy of albums that bracketed the purple patch a-ha went through, and though some of the other albums were as good, few if any equalled or better this, their second outing. Although they continued to have hits across Europe throughout the nineties and beyond, after 1988's "Stay on these roads" their massive popularity was more or less over. People who wanted more songs like "Take on me", "The sun always shines on TV", "Cry wolf" and the later "Touchy" as well as the title track to the third album shied away from later releases like "East of the sun, west of the moon" and "Memorial Beach", and a-ha were left to play music for their fans (of which there were plenty) but never again troubled the top echelons of the charts.
In the US they were even less known, having only the two hits over there, both from the debut. Singles like "Cry wolf" and "Manhattan skyline", despite the title of the latter and its reference to New York, went totally unnoticed in the US of A, and over there a-ha would have been considered as a one-hit (or maybe two) wonder. Here, too, their greatest claim to fame and the monkey that remained on their back for ten years was and is "Take on me".
As I outlined recently in my section "The Albatross", that song is, for so many people, all a-ha ever achieved, and what they will always be known for, something that continued to haunt them throughout their quarter-century-long career. But this album shows that good as that song was, they were capable of so much more.