If it wasn't for that video, people would be saying, "A-who?"
I can’t believe that it is 40 years since A-Ha’s video of “Take on Me” was released.
I believe it’s the only music video on YT with over 2 billion views.
I remember at the time when music videos just came into the fore that a lot of people pointed out it would kill music because, in the past (when music was only listened to and not usually seen) music had a more personally experiential aspect to it. It formed the background of our lives and experience and created memories. Even if it were just playing in the background on some tinny little radio, it formed the soundtrack of our lives. So many of us can hear a song and have it take us back 20, 30, 50 years and immediately recall was going on in our lives at that time. Video, however, formed it's own impression as it often played out a performed story to the music which replaced the musical memory with some video producers interpretation of it. Thus, the thinking went, people weren't able as much to make music as personal and leave the impression that it once did.
I don't know a lot of young people these days of have access to their experience with today's music, but my general impression is that music overall is not the personal and cultural memory maker that it once was. I'd be glad to learn different.
LOL! Best pop band to ever come out of Norway. And I honestly thought that song was from… this century!