Thanks man! I appreciate your input. SD has always been my alltime favourite a-ha album, though it sort of seesaws between that and Analogue. Still, I've been listened to Scoundrel longer than Analogue so perhaps have managed to capture the nuances of it more in my mind. I believe if this had been the debut a-ha album one of two things would have happened: they would have been more accepted as a "serious" band and gone on to be really super-famous or, conversely, the pop fans would have frowned at the more mature tracks and relegated them to the status of one-hit wonders... oh, wait...
Honestly, though, I do wonder what would have happened had Scoundrel Days been the first the world heard of a-ha? With or without ToM, would they have been as successful, less, or more? Of course we'll never know now, but I love that album to death.
Apart from "Maybe, maybe...."
