a-ha geeking
Jun. 19th, 2005 11:18 amSo yesterday in email ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
starfallz said to me, "Since you are the a-Ha expert..... I'm wanting to find some more a-Ha
on CD." And she proceeded to ask me for recommendations about various and sundry later discs by those boys from Norway. I went blinkety-blink and admitted that while I owned copies of Minor Earth Major Sky and Lifelines, I'd barely given either album a proper listen. After I answered her email, though, I decided to correct this problem. I fired up iTunes and listened to Lifelines, Memorial Beach, and Minor Earth Major Sky in succession, so finally I HAVE listened to my later a-ha albums.
Lifelines strikes me as an album of a lighter tone than Minor Earth Major Sky--the former is sort of wistful and mellow, while the latter seems a bit more moody and a little melancholy. There are tracks on both I've rated for repeat play to get them onto my Favorites playlist, but I think that overall I still prefer earlier a-ha--Scoundrel Days and East of the Sun, West of the Moon remain my favorite a-ha albums.
Part of this, I think, is that Morten Harket's voice is slowly showing the effects of getting older. He seems less prone these days to get up into those upper registers--he can still make it up there, as evidenced on Lifelines, but there doesn't seem to be as much power and resonance in those notes for him as was there in his younger days. I haven't heard him hit those high notes in a faster song since "Rolling Thunder" on East of the Sun, West of the Moon.
Also, I just like the styles of the earlier albums better. A-ha's always been prone to moodiness in their songs--lots of songs about relationships going awry and suchlike--but the earlier albums just seem to have more vigor to them, which offsets the moodiness for me. The later albums seem to have this tendency to do this 'muting' thing on Morten's voice, such as in the title track on MEMS, and I'm not sure I care for that. It seems to remove something critical out of the equation for me. I haven't had an a-ha track grab me with its vigor and rhythm since "Move to Memphis" on Memorial Beach.
starfallz said to me, "Since you are the a-Ha expert..... I'm wanting to find some more a-Ha on CD." And she proceeded to ask me for recommendations about various and sundry later discs by those boys from Norway. I went blinkety-blink and admitted that while I owned copies of Minor Earth Major Sky and Lifelines, I'd barely given either album a proper listen. After I answered her email, though, I decided to correct this problem. I fired up iTunes and listened to Lifelines, Memorial Beach, and Minor Earth Major Sky in succession, so finally I HAVE listened to my later a-ha albums.
Lifelines strikes me as an album of a lighter tone than Minor Earth Major Sky--the former is sort of wistful and mellow, while the latter seems a bit more moody and a little melancholy. There are tracks on both I've rated for repeat play to get them onto my Favorites playlist, but I think that overall I still prefer earlier a-ha--Scoundrel Days and East of the Sun, West of the Moon remain my favorite a-ha albums.
Part of this, I think, is that Morten Harket's voice is slowly showing the effects of getting older. He seems less prone these days to get up into those upper registers--he can still make it up there, as evidenced on Lifelines, but there doesn't seem to be as much power and resonance in those notes for him as was there in his younger days. I haven't heard him hit those high notes in a faster song since "Rolling Thunder" on East of the Sun, West of the Moon.
Also, I just like the styles of the earlier albums better. A-ha's always been prone to moodiness in their songs--lots of songs about relationships going awry and suchlike--but the earlier albums just seem to have more vigor to them, which offsets the moodiness for me. The later albums seem to have this tendency to do this 'muting' thing on Morten's voice, such as in the title track on MEMS, and I'm not sure I care for that. It seems to remove something critical out of the equation for me. I haven't had an a-ha track grab me with its vigor and rhythm since "Move to Memphis" on Memorial Beach.
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