Category: music

MOAR deluxe edition albums!

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We’ve covered a bit of this already, but after a-ha released their recent offering Cast In Steel, they then released a Deluxe 30th Anniversary Edition of their 1985 classic Hunting High And Low. It has loads of previously unreleased stuff all over its 4 CD loveliness. That only came out last week, so I can’t imagine that it’s the widespread critical acclaim that has prompted the following announcement, but that’s unimportant. What is important is the contents of the following announcement:

A-HA CONTINUE DELUXE EDITION SERIES

Yep. Deluxe editions of Stay On These Roads, Memorial Beach and East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon are on their way. Be still my beaten wallet.

Track listings are here, and once again include demo versions, remixes and previously unreleased material. Included is the instrumental version of Angel In The Snow, special to me because it’s the song that my wife (or wife-to-be, I guess) walked up the aisle to at our wedding.

But wait, there’s more. Lots, lots more. An alternative mix of the beautiful Out Of Blue Comes Green. The soulful I’ll Never Find You In This Streetful City and a DVD release of the 1993 VHS Live In South America.

If you’re an a-ha fan (spoiler: I am), it’s going to be raining wonder for quite some time.

Premier Inn

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Over in the UK, they have different adverts. Despite massive globalisation, not every brand has made it everywhere, and thus the local brands need to advertise their wares locally. Premier Inn are a hotel chain that don’t exist in SA (I guess you’d compare them to an slightly upmarket City Lodge), and so obviously, neither does the Premier Inn advert.

The advert is ok. You can see it here. I wonder how much Lenny Henry got paid for his role? I could have done that. For less.
But the music is properly nice – it’s Katie “Loads of bikes in Peking” Melua with her cover of Black’s 1987 hit Wonderful Life.

Very gentle. Very smooth. And it’s supporting children’s hospital charities in the UK, including the one in Sheffield where I had my tonsils out and my left elbow reset (in entirely separate events). So, you know, if your Randelas can stretch that far, go and find it on iTunes as well.

It’s here

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The new a-ha album Cast In Steel came out last night. And I’m listening to it right now. I’ve been listening to it most of the morning, truth be told. I’ve missed several important phone calls and ignored all my colleagues in a meeting. These people must just understand. After all, I’m usually very accommodating. Today is different, though, because a-ha’s new album came out today and that’s actually far more important to me than they are right now.

I’ll obviously have to do a proper review at some stage (of the album, not the colleagues), but for the moment, have this:
First thoughts (spoiler: I’ve been listening to excerpts and track leaks for the last couple of months, so these are actually not my first thoughts at all) are that it is very Radio 2. This is no longer the cutting edge of pop music. This is mature music for a more mature audience. A Radio 2 listening audience.

However, there remains, amongst the music for old people, hints of the electronic synth-pop which made a-ha so popular 30 (*weep*) years ago. That ting-ting-ting in the chorus of The Wake, the first few bars of Forest Fire, which could be straight off 1985’s Hunting High And Low, will happily take you back to younger days.

Then add the 5 bonus tracks: demo versions and interesting remixes of previous releases, and you’ve got a proper treat for fans like me who have been around for too long since the early days.
And there’s more on the way, with a concert tour (yes, I shall be making plans) and the 30th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition Box Set of Hunting High and Low [lengthy tracklist here] coming out later this month (strike while the iron is hot).

September has been kind to us.

Therapy?

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I was listening to some Therapy? on the way to work this morning. Memories of working at the National Radiological Protection Board came flooding back.
But you don’t want to know about that – you want to be remined of what the Northern Irish trio sounded like.

Well, in 1993, they sounded like this:

Wonderful.

And I was delighted to hear that just this May, they released a new album, Disquiet – I’m downloading that now.
It’ll fill in the day’s wait until Cast In Steel is available.

Under The Makeup

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With their new (and allegedly last) album out next week, a-ha have finally got around to releasing the video for Under The Makeup: the first single off Cast In Steel. I’ll be honest, aside from the soaring James Bond-esque strings, it’s not one of my favourites by them and that was a bit worrying. Thankfully, the next offering, called The Wake sounds much more like my kind of thing, replete, as it is, with OMD-style ding-y keyboards and an 80’s synthpop feel, but more of that sometime soon.

So – here it is, starring Sofie Gråbøl and Frida “no accents in my surname” Farrell:

Sadly, given all the teasers and the generated suspense, they messed up a bit with the upload to YouTube, meaning that lots of Europe, Africa and apparently all of North and South America couldn’t watch due to “international content restrictions”. Thus, the video above is uploaded from the ridiculously named “WeWantA-HAandMortenHarket InTheFrenchMedia”. They might have a looney name and a niche agenda, but they can at least put 200 seconds of (ahem – pirated) video on the internet better than Universal music.
So… y’know… good for them.

As for the video… ja. I’ve watched it several times now, and I’m still not 100% sure of what’s going on, aside from the unfortunate demise of our protagonist. Are those… are those… Yurts? Do Pal and Magne escape? Whose side are they on anyway? What’s in the briefcase and why is that woman preparing a butternut in the middle of the Scandinavian wilderness?

Are you as lost as I am?

All in all, it’s not a great start to the whole Cast In Steel saga. There was never going to be massive commercial appeal for this anyway, but please – it should at least leave the fans happy. This, awkwardly… hasn’t… doesn’t.

Oh dear.