You probably still remember that high-pitched voice at the beginning. Morten Harket, A-ha’s lead singer, hits a note in “Take On Me” that he holds for no less than nine seconds. By the way, he still does this live - the man truly has an incredible voice. But of course, it’s that catchy synthesizer riff and that falsetto voice that make the song legendary.

What really made it a classic? That bizarre music video. Directed by Steve Barron, in which a girl is literally pulled into a drawn comic book world. It was next level for its time. They combined live footage with pencil-sketch animation (called rotoscoping), and it took three months to make. They hand-drew more than 3,000 frames! In 1986, the video won six MTV Video Music Awards, and rightfully so - you still see it in lists of best videos of all time.

Funny enough, “Take On Me” was initially a complete flop. The first version from 1984 did nothing at all. Producer Alan Tarney then reworked the song, they made that brilliant video, and boom - a year later it was suddenly a worldwide hit. Sometimes you just have to keep trying, apparently.

A-ha consists of Morten Harket (vocals), Magne Furuholmen (keyboards), and Pål Waaktaar-Savoy (guitar). They came from Norway and ensured that Scandinavian pop was suddenly taken seriously. The band stopped in 2010, reunited in 2015, and you still see them touring occasionally. But yes, “Take On Me” remains their biggest hit. At every party, every ‘80s radio broadcast - that song always comes up.

And rightfully so. It’s simply a perfect pop song.