a-ha are one of those bands about whom intelligent people have written intelligent things. Ned, one of their biggest advocates over the years, re-examines Scoundrel Days, which I bet you didn't know was their followup to their only U.S. gold album Hunting High and Low. His essay made me do the Wikipedia thing in place of real research, but you uncover strange bits of trivia: Keane isn't the only one to noice that U2's "Beautiful Day" bears more than a passing resemblance to a-ha's second and last Top 20 single "The Sun Always Shines on T.V."

As for me, every time I've heard "Take On Me" in the last eight years I've been very drunk in a club, and it sounds like bliss, like ten thousand seraphim chanting the name of the Lord -- and it's got nothing to do with the video. The fadeout -- in which singer Morten Harket's unearthly alto competes with doubletracked harmonies trying to quelch him -- is exactly what I mean.