AHa

a-ha is a band from Norway. They initially rose to fame during the 1980s, but have had continued success in the 1990s and 2000s.

a-ha achieved its biggest success with their debut album and single in 1985. Hunting High and Low peaked at number fifteen on the Billboard charts and yielded an international number-one single, "Take on Me", earning the band a Grammy Award nomination as Best New Artist. Hunting High and Low was one of the best-selling albums of 1986. In 1994, the band went on a hiatus, the same year a-ha reached a sales number of 20 million albums sold worldwide. After a performance at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 1998, the band returned to the studio and recorded 2000's Minor Earth Major Sky, which resulted in a new tour. By 2000, they had reached 36 million albums sold wordwide plus a double figure million singles. In 2002 the band released their seventh studio album Lifelines. Analogue is their newest studio album and is their most successful studio album in the UK since East of the Sun, West of the Moon and has been certified silver.

The trio, composed of lead vocalist Morten Harket, guitarist Paul Waaktaar-Savoy (Pål Waaktaar until his marriage in 1994) and keyboardist Magne Furuholmen, formed in 1982 and left Norway for London in order to make a career in the music business. They chose the studio of musician, producer and soon-to-be-manager John Ratcliff, because it had a Space Invaders machine. John Ratcliff introduced the boys to his manager, Terry Slater, and after a few meetings a-ha had two managers. Terry Slater and John Ratcliff together formed T.J. Management. To deal with all the technical and musical aspects they have Ratcliff, and Slater's position is the international business manager and liaison to Warner Brothers' head office in Los Angeles. The origin of the name a-ha comes from a title Paul contemplated giving to a song. He could not choose between the names "a-ha" and "A-men". Morten was looking through Paul's notebook and came across the name "a-ha". He liked it, and said, "That's a great name. That's what we should call ourselves." After checking dictionaries in several languages, they found out that a-ha was an international way of expressing recognition, with positive connotations. It was short, easy to say and unusual.

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