J
ust how on earth do you follow up that song? With the difficult second album. Norway’s finest returned with a much darker record – a melodramatic synth-operetta that revealed a more complex and intriguing group than their poster boys image would suggest.
At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, Take On Me is a seriously good pop song. In fact, it’s too good; so apparently effortless, immediately accessible and easy on the ear that we tend to overlook quite how sophisticated, intricate and well-crafted it is. It’s even simpler to dismiss its instantly hummable hook as mere bubblegum fodder, when delivered by three easy-on-the-eye Nordic cherubs, barely out of their teens. It’s so inherently marketable, the cynical might suspect foul play. Only when you stop to analyse its constituent parts (and attempt to hit that note) does the penny finally drop that you’re dealing with three heavyweight musos who have really got their shit together. Seriously good pop indeed.