Poll: a-ha – the final song of the final show of the final tour

After 25 years in the industry, a-ha will sign off on December 4th 2010 with their final ever show.  The Oslo gig – which sold out within two hours – will be attended by fans from all over the world and promises to be a very emotional occasion for both fans and the band.

So, with that in mind, what song would you like to hear Morten, Magne and Paul sign off with?  Feel free to discuss further in the comments section below.

The right time for a-ha to say goodbye

Depending on which re-written press release you read today you’ll learn that a-ha were formed anywhere from 25 to 27 years ago, split up in the nineties for anywhere from five to seven years and got back together in 1998 – or is that 1999?  No, it was 2000 apparently.

What you will unanimously learn and can safely take as fact is that the Norwegians have decided to retire as a band in 2010, marking the 25th anniversary of the release of their first album “Hunting High and Low”.

There are a significant number of people raising their eyebrows pondering how it is that the day they find out a-ha are still together is the day they find out that they’re splitting up.

But for many who stuck with a-ha through the last 25 years this announcement will have come as a shock.  Didn’t they always reason that the band would split when they stopped selling records and people stopped coming to see them?  Why would a band who have just claimed their highest charting UK album in over two decades, a succession of #1 albums in Europe and a stream of long-overdue critical acclaim from the media and – more importantly - their peers, pack it in?

Well those achievements are exactly why this is the right time to say goodbye.

In the brilliant rockumentary, “The Making of Pump“, Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford says of the recording process: “You can record with 48 tracks, 96 tracks, you can start tying tape machines together.  You got to know when to stop.”

The music industry is full of acts that didn’t know when to stop.  A-ha made that mistake before, rendered irrelevant by the grunge explosion of the early nineties just at the same time they were growing their hair and growing up.  They endured dwindling sales, smaller live venues and bruised egos, and went one album too far with 1993’s (admittedly excellent) “Memorial Beach” before splitting to work on solo projects.

Their 2000 return was a huge success in mainland Europe and they scored their first UK top ten hit single for 18 years in 2005 with “Analogue“.  Yes, they recorded a big hit album this year but that accomplishment almost seems incidental compared to the reaction they received.

Looking at their positive demeanour in interviews and on stage it seems that the genuine warmth they’ve experienced from the media, the public and the many acts of today who have publicly heralded their influence, has completed the circle for the band.

What else is there to achieve?  Where else can they go?  If respect and appreciation was measured in record sales then a-ha have just had their biggest hit in 25 years.  And shouldn’t everyone quit when they’re on top?

Personal addendum

I opened the Google News email alert for “a-ha” that arrived in my inbox and kind of squinted at it.

It didn’t make any sense to me initially.  And even after I clicked on it my mind was calculating that somehow I had received some old news story from the mid 90s.  Although I’ve no time for overt obsession with something as relatively meaningless as a musical act, I felt my chest tighten as the news started to sink in.

I grew up with a-ha; the soundtrack of my formative years.  I’ve probably mentioned it somewhere on the site – and I’m sure there are hundreds of similar stories out there somewhere – but when you’re 12 and unsure of yourself, songs like “Here I Stand and Face the Rain” articulate what you’re feeling when you are too young to understand.

“The Blue Sky“, from their debut record, resonated with this insecurity: “I find it hard to breathe as life just eats away…The lady at my table doesn’t want me here/I just want to talk to her/But would she laugh at my accent and make fun of me?…Though i’m older than my looks and older than my years/I’m too young to take on my deepest fears“.

So here we are almost 25 years later and I’m not sure that I would have the level of understanding and self-awareness that I do if it wasn’t for a-ha’s influence (alongside John Hughes movies and Nirvana).  I’m trying to avoid being mawkish in closing but the fact that their music has endured with such meaning for so many people, means that Morten, Magne and Paul can stand in the doorway of the darkened studio for the final time, look around, smile and say “our work is done here”.

Edit: Please see Karen’s blog on the same subject.  Some very personal memories from their mid 80s touring.

[Movie Review] The Happening

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo

Director: M Night Shyamalan

Genre: Sci-Fi

Cert: 15

Released: 2008

My only ambition for “The Happening”, having failed to sit through director M Night Shyamalan’s previous outings “The Village” and “Lady in the Water”, was to see the closing credits roll .  The decreasing level of entertainment derived from Shyamalan’s work (which started so well with “The Sixth Sense” and “Unbreakable”) has been utterly alarming.  But with a strong cast on board for “The Happening” and a mysterious premise (as is typical) my hopes were a little higher than in recent years.

Science teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) is teaching his classroom about “unexplained acts of nature” when news breaks that people in New York’s Central Park have started committing suicide in broad daylight.  As the unexplained phenomenon starts spreading across the city, Elliot, his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), fellow-teacher Julian (John Leguizamo) and his daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), board a train to Philadelphia only for it to stop permanently in the tiny town of Filbert because the conductor has lost contact with “everyone”.

The train passengers learn that the phenomenon has continued to spread across the north-east so everybody starts to flee.  Julian decides to get a lift to Princeton where his wife has headed so he leaves Jess with Elliot and Alma.  They meet a colourful couple (Frank Collison and Victoria Clark) who suspect that it is the plants, trees and bushes that are attacking man because they have the ability to do so (apparently).  It soon becomes clear that they are running out of places to go and after meeting several more groups of refugees they start a trek across the countryside on foot in an effort to escape this “act of nature”.

To offer any more plot synopsis would really be stretching my own patience.  The basic premise of this movie is that something unexplained is happening and the onus seems to be on the constantly-confused looking Mark Wahlberg to use his grounding in science to figure it out (it’s a good thing the main protagonist wasn’t a gym teacher or deli counter salesperson or else we’d have gotten nowhere).

I admire Shyamalan as a director but his writing has left a lot to be desired recently.  Just because he writes science-fiction doesn’t mean the film has to be devoid of logic and fact.  Mark Wahlberg is done over twice by being badly miscast and being given some absolutely ludicrous dialogue that is more about pushing the writer’s spiritual agenda than making a believable movie.  How many science teachers talk about the different “energy” colours that can be recorded by camera or “acts of nature” that we’ll never fully understand?   This flies completely in the face of what science is all about.

Then there’s the neuroticism of Alma, distant from Elliot and distracted by constant phone calls from someone called Joey.  The ensuing focus on her relationship with Elliot predictably becomes the tool that Shyamalan uses to drive home the central message.  It’s all very poorly acted and full of improbable scenes.

By the end (which somehow feels empty in spite of being well-crafted) your complete indifference for the central characters only amplify what a poor, unfocused mess this movie is.  Shyamalan made two cracking films (plus a slight nod of the cap to “Signs”) before strangling his visual ideas with ludicrously boring scripts.

How good was it to see Alan Ruck though?

[Movie Review] Kill Switch

Starring: Steven Seagal, Isaac Hayes, Holly Elissa Dignard, Chris Thomas King, Michael Filipowich, Mark Collie

Director: Jeff King

Genre: Action

Cert: 18

Released: 2008

Bearing in mind that Steven Seagal is 57 years old I should probably cut the guy a bit of slack.  But one look at Bruce Willis (54), Dolph Lundgren (51) and even Sly Stallone (63) shows that you can keep yourself in great shape later in life if you try.  The star of “Nico”, “Hard to Kill” and “Under Siege” is a shadow of the man he used to be.  Well, actually in terms of shadow, he’s a far bigger one.  But when it comes to kicking ass it has just become a sham.  Let me explain.

“Kill Switch” starts with Memphis cop Jacob King (Seagal) dishing out brutal justice to sadistic murderer Billy Joel Hill (Mark Collie).  Although he apprehends Hill, the murderer is later released on a technicality as King is adjudged to have used unreasonable force during the arrest.

Meanwhile his attention turns to a serial killer whose calling card sees him leave an astronomical sign on the body of each victim.  As he searches for leads in the violent Memphis underworld, King’s efforts are being undermined by FBI agent Frankie Miller (Holly Elissa Dignard) who is critical of his strong-arm tactics.

Can King keep the FBI off his back, track down the serial killer and manage to re-apprehend the out-for-revenge Hill before Hill finds him?

Steven Seagal probably stopped being any good in the mid 90s.  I got a good kick out of “Under Siege 2″ (probably because Eric Bogosian was so much fun in it) but whenever I’ve dipped in to his outings since (“The Glimmer Man”, “Ticker”) it has been a complete waste of time.  ”Ticker” is actually possibly the worst film I’ve ever seen…and believe me, this one is crap.

A bloated Seagal

Anyway I’m messing around with my usual review structure but I’ll make this succinct.  I said the movie opened with King kicking layers off the bad guy.  It doesn’t.  It actually opens with what turns out to be King’s character, as a child, witnessing his brother being killed in front of him by a man with a knife.  I’m not actually sure why that scene is there because it seems to have absolutely no relevance to the rest of the plot.

Then we see King having a somewhat cold relationship with Celine (Karyn Michelle Baltzer) who appears to live in his house and who I assume is his girlfriend or wife or something.  They share a few scenes together but never say anything of consequence.  It’s just…weird.

Then, finally, the fight scenes.  Whatever about the nonsensical script, Seagal’s movies were always about the great fight scenes.  The guy is a 7th-dan black belt in aikido and his massacring of bad guys was the reason to watch his films.  Sadly when you watch “Kill Switch” you aren’t watching him and that becomes painfully obvious.  The camera will do a close up of some tense facial expressions as he faces off a foe before pulling back to show him from behind putting down his enemy – or at least showing his body double (complete with bad wig) doing so.

I’m not sure what the reason for this is.  He’s definitely overweight but he’s been that way for years and is clearly unmotivated to get back in shape.  He’s not so overweight that he couldn’t do hand-to-hand combat scenes but his body double seems to do all but one of them.  It’s a real shame because in his pomp he was incredible.

“Kill Switch” is a washout.  It makes no sense, is utterly boring, poorly acted and – as made clear – is not even redeemed by the fight scenes.  And sadly, what appears to be yet another film featuring an imperious and flawless Steven Seagal character, was actually written by…Mr Steven Seagal.  Does every film for him have to be a vanity project?

[Album Review] “Graffiti Soul” – Simple Minds

Album Title: Graffiti Soul

Artist: Simple Minds

Year: 2009

Running Time: 42m 52s

Track listing: 1 Moskow Underground; 2 Rockets; 3 Stars Will Lead the Way; 4 Light Travels; 5 Kiss and Fly; 6 Graffiti Soul; 7 Blood Type O; 8 This is It; 9 Shadows and Light (bonus track); 10 Rockin’ in the Free World (bonus track)

I come from a position of ignorance with respect to Simple Minds.  I liked the Breakfast Club song, didn’t like the Belfast song, loved the song about the girl who resembled a waterway and wasn’t overly keen on the Sky Sports football track.

Simple Minds found worldwide success with the 1985 hit single “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” which preceded their seventh and most successful album to date, “Once Upon a Time”.  After recording a string of further UK hit albums throughout the next decade the band then fell out of fashion and later work like “Neapolis”, “Cry” and “Black And White” made little impact on the charts.

“Graffiti Soul” is the 16th studio album release of their thirty year career and with the recent resurgence of bands like Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and a-ha, the ground is once again fertile for Simple Minds to make their mark.

The album opens with “Moskow Undergroud”, a sonic minefield steeped in guitars and synths with a thumping, ominous rhythm providing the backdrop for the “world of darkened places” and the “world that’s lost control”.  ”Rockets” is more in the line of upbeat disco-rock with a killer melody, plush bridge and hand-clapping chorus- a modern-day classic.

There were many comparisons made to U2 over the years and this is no more evident than on the arena anthems ”Stars Will Lead the Way” and “This is It”, right down to Charlie Burchill’s lead guitar hooks and Jim Kerr’s smouldering vocals.  ”Kiss and Fly” could have been an “Achtung Baby” outtake although it saunters somewhat uneventfully until the chorus, which just about saves the track from average territory.

“Light Travels” starts with a minimalistic 80s rhythm line and a lone guitar. “Light travels through the universe/It arrives, it remains” sings Kerr as he walks the thin line between logic and preposterousness.  The rest of the band join in for the uplifting chorus (“There’s no need to worry/Hello, hello; is anybody home?“) and another recommended track is born.

The title track is a so-so number that fumbles with a strained lyric about “things written on the wall…in my graffiti soul” and a downright puzzling chorus refrain of “you bring me lightning“.  But “Blood Type O” is an exceptional tune that wanders back in to darker territory with an electronic feel that recalls Depeche Mode.

Although the basic record seems to only be eight tracks, two so-called “bonus tracks” are included.  ”Shadows and Light” is a fine song that sounds like post-grunge Pearl Jam and their cover of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” can’t really be faulted even if the last thing the world needed was another cover of this track.

Most of the tracks are characterised by clever production effects, strong instrumentation and songwriting.  It might be my first Simple Minds record but it won’t be my last.

A credibility issue

One hit wonders, apparently.

It must have seemed like déjà vu for Morten Harket and Magne Furuholmen, two-thirds of rock band a-ha, as they sat on the GMTV breakfast time couch in London on Friday morning.

The scene was set when presenter Emma Crosby – somewhat understandably given the universal reference point – started the interview with a “Take On Me” reference. She then proclaimed that the Norwegian “masterminds of pop” are back, introduced a video package which included the aforementioned 1985 hit single and three clips of the band performing newer hits on the very same breakfast show from 2000, 2002 and 2005.

“Does that bring back fond memories, looking at that?” she asked, as if it were an achievement for them to remember songs they recorded in the last decade.

The baffling statements continued. “I bet your fans are over the moon that you decided to come back together and do this album and the tour,” she said, seemingly oblivious to the fact that this was their fourth album and tour of the decade and as recently as 2006 had achieved a top ten UK single.

“Was it a question of digging out the guitars and drum kits or have you been performing?” was next out as Magne just about managed to keep a straight face.

“What kind of reaction have you had from your fans that you are getting back together?” was a step too far for Morten. “Well, we have been doing this for 25 years so, uh…,” he laughed.

After an awkward exchange about what songs are their “favourites” (a redundant question in any interview which is akin to asking parents which of their children they prefer), co-presenter Andrew Castle then returned the topic to “Take On Me” to which Magne cordially explained is a song they’ve now made their peace with and joked about starting a gig with it some time.

“Will you enjoy it more this time around?” Emma asked, which is like asking U2 or any other band on the planet if they will enjoy their 2009 tour any more than their 2006, 2002 or 1999 tour.

The interview mercifully came to an end and they turned their attention to an online webcast to answer some mainly sensible questions from fans (part 1 and part 2).  The difference in demeanour between the two “interviews” was noticeable.  Maybe fans should always write the questions for inane interviewers.

But herein lies the problem for a-ha, a band still wrestling to find credibility in spite of spending half their lives as professional musicians. Unlike many other artists of their era, a-ha have never been dropped from a record deal and they clearly still make money for their employers – they have sold almost forty million albums worldwide.

But record sales are distinct from peer group respect and it has become customary for interviews of the last four or five years to try and rubber stamp a-ha’s credibility by wheeling out the names of contemporary acts like Coldplay, Keane, U2, Bloc Party and Robbie Williams, all of whom have cited admiration for the Norwegians.

In a 2005 interview with Metro, Magne addressed this very issued:

“It’s always tough to gauge your own history but it’s a good thing when people you yourself have respect for give you credit for what you’ve done. It means a lot more than some idiot critic saying something condescending about the group based on them not knowing much about us.”

Four years later Magne had to make similar points again in Metro in an article entitled “A-Ha: We’re more than cheekbones”.

“That’s part of the vindication on our part that we get credited for the music that we left behind these days. That’s the inheritance you want to leave behind, not the frustration of being an awkward pop star or a misplaced poster boy.”

You feel he’ll be making the same points again in 2013. No matter what the band achieve they will for ever attempt to become bigger than “Take On Me”.

Like many maligned pop stars, a-ha have no such credibility issues in Germany with their latest album hitting number one and the title track being their highest charting single since “Take On Me”. They are comfortable there, safe in the knowledge that interviewers and critics take them seriously. They command prime TV slots and have no need to defend their legacy.

The Scotsman sat down with the band and conducted one of the most honest interviews I’ve ever read. Journalist Paul Lester describes the band as a “Joy Division for anxious, adolescent girls” and as “doyens of exquisitely dolorous synthpop, sung with soaring yearning by Harket”.

The band may have been all that but they were marketed as pin-ups. Guitarist and chief-songwriter Paul Waaktaar-Savoy describes how their vision of being The Doors-meets-Soft Cell evaporated very quickly.

“When my wife saw the first album and the poster it came with, she went, ‘Uh-oh’.”

Three years after that debut album a-ha were still making bad decisions. The 1988 hit single “You Are the One” owed nothing to The Doors or Soft Cell and the accompanying video (complete with sailor suits) can only be explained away by an early mid-life crisis.

Maybe that was the nadir because the band got moody, grew their hair and sported bandanas for their 1990 record “East of the Sun”. As their fan base lost interest, so too did a-ha, moving further from their roots in the search for credibility on the gloomy “Memorial Beach” in 1993.

About this period, Harket tells The Scotsman:

“We were at the peak of denouncing ourselves and what we had been. When you’re at war with yourself you will go under. I don’t think we were focused. We were fighting too many demons, and trying to avoid things.”

Over fifteen years later a-ha still find themselves trying to change perceptions but at least now they seem comfortable in their own skin.

Read my review of the new a-ha album here.

[Movie Review] The Condemned

Starring: Steve Austin, Vinnie Jones, Robert Mammone, Tory Mussett, Rick Hoffman

Director: Scott Wiper

Genre: Action

Cert: 18

Released: 2007

Dropping ten death row inmates on an island and giving them thirty hours to slaughter each other sounds like it’s the last thing that network television would choose to cover. With that in mind the only choice for TV producer Ian Breckel (Robert Mammone) is to put it out live on the Internet. His target is to get a Superbowl-level audience of forty million to cough up to $50 each for the privilege of seeing these condemned men and women kill each other, with the last person standing receiving their freedom and a pocketful of cash.

Jack Conrad (former wrestler, Steve Austin), on death row in an El Salvadorian prison, is chosen after he batters the Arab prisoner that Breckel initially selected in a bid to please his Middle East demographic. Conrad, billed falsely as a KKK member and bomber of a school for handicapped children, joins Ewan McStarley (Vinnie Jones), Kreston Mackie (footballer Marcus Johnson), wrestler Nathan Jones and six other men and women, all of whom have bombs strapped to their legs.  If you can’t kill your nemesis with your fists or a weapon then you can activate the bomb and make use of the ten second delay to escape its blast.

While the assembled criminals fight for survival, the FBI seem unclear how to track down Breckel’s illegal game. Special Agent Wilkins (Sullivan Stapleton) manages to identify Conrad and uncovers information about his former lover, Sarah (Madeleine West). Sarah hasn’t seen Jack in over a year and immediately logs on to the site so she can watch the slaughter for herself. Yeah…let’s just leave it at that and get on with the critique.

When World Wrestling Entertainment decided that producing movies was a natural extension to their sporting soap opera, hopes were probably not very high at the outset. Even with that in mind, “The Condemned” is a failure on just about every level.

Movies can require a level of ’suspension of disbelief’ but “The Condemned” asks for far more than is realistic. For a start, it seems completely ridiculous to suggest that the FBI would be unable to use modern tracking techniques to locate where this vast network is running from. I mean they roughly, kind-of-know but the sub-plot amounts to three C-list actors looking tense in a fairly nicely furnished office. Are you telling me that an intelligence agency, responsible for investigating highly organised terrorist gangs around the globe, would not have noticed tonnes of television equipment being shipped to an island? And, independent of that, they couldn’t have the site shut down?

The entire nerve center, a mass of TV screens and television production equipment run by Breckel, technicians Goldman (Rick Hoffman), Eddie (Christopher Baker) and Breckel’s reluctant girlfriend Julie (Tory Mussett), is located on the island too. Perhaps there is not much wrong with that but the fact that finding it for Conrad was about as hard as putting on a pair of shoes indicates that not a lot of thought was put in to Breckel’s master plan. Sure, they try and paint over the cracks by having Conrad block his GPS and be a bit wily but, trust me, it’s lazy and – in the context of the film – absurd.

Director Scott Wiper, whose previous directing outings have barely registered and all of which he has starred in, attempts some social commentary along the lines of how it is us, the audience, who are in fact “the condemned” for wanting to watch the show. That’s all well and good but it’s the ham-fisted manner in which this message is delivered which raises jaded sighs rather than wide-eyed realisation. It’s bad enough that Conrad’s friends gather in a bar to cheer him on but to rubber stamp it with a reporter Donna Sereno’s editorial on the same subject is a case of a director ignoring the golden rule of “show, don’t tell”.

Aside from Breckel talking about the Internet like it’s 1996, the dialogue is actually okay in parts. It’s clear early on though that witty répartie is not safe in the hands of the unskilled “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. I could imagine Bruce Willis being able to raise a laugh by revealing that the reason he blew up a building is because it was “blocking his sun”. Austin just says it.  He doesn’t have a lot to say but one-liners are not his forté. Vinnie Jones, who impressed me in the only “proper” acting role I’ve seen him in (“The Riddle“), resorts to cartoonish villain here and it’s painful.

The fight scenes are pasasble but the camera darts around too much for us to really work out how good, or otherwise, the choreography is. Some of the transitions between scenes don’t feel right either.  You are left feeling like you missed something – maybe not something of consequence but just a small set-up scene that makes the narration seem more cohesive.

Needless to say, not a great piece of work.  Obvious reference point here is Battle Royale.  Watch that instead.

[Album Review] “Foot of the Mountain” – a-ha

Band: a-ha

Album title: Foot of the Mountain

Year: 2009

Track Listing: 1. The Bandstand; 2. Riding the Crest; 3. What There Is; 4. Foot of the Mountain; 5. Real Meaning; 6. Shadowside; 7. Nothing is Keeping You Here; 8. Mother Nature Goes to Heaven; 9. Sunny Mystery; 10. Start the Simulator

Running Time: 40m 49s

For their ninth studio album a-ha have returned to their synth-pop roots, the sounds that defined their early records before the move to a more organic sound in the ninties. The problem with the band’s recent output is that they have clearly been contributing material better suited to their solo pursuits – in guitarist Paul Waaktaar-Savoy’s case, indie and sixities; in keyboardist Magne Furuholmen’s case, cynical acoustic weariness. The promise for “Foot of the Mountain” is that they will deliver a record written for a-ha and, in particular, for lead singer Morten Harket’s vocal range.

The Bandstand
The “new old” direction is clear in opening gambit, “The Bandstand”, a swirling, melancholic number that mixes dark beats with a strong business-like synth riff and squares it with Morten Harket’s high-pitched vocal. It’s a simple tale of humanity from a tense confrontation (“No need to worry, everything’s fine/I’ll take you away from this name-calling scene”) to the mutual consolation found late at night (“Cold and windblown on the old bandstand/You and I walking hand in hand/A neon glow shining down on us/Don’t wait up for us”) and it’s a belter.
Rating: ****

Riding the Crest
One of the most talked-about tracks prior to release,, a foot-tapping Erasure-style synth-pop number about how people find strength and self-assurance in life. “In your mind/You’re tall and brave… Internally, you make your own rules/You have excuses/The ones that you choose” seem to indicate a person who is in control. But the coping mechanism might not be all that natural: “There comes a time/You don’t even know what’s missing/Some sugar to make the pill go down…True to pre-existing norms/Truly wasted, at a rave/Riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave” puts a darker slant on what is an immensely upbeat song. A great beat, a so-so keyboard riff and some great vocal work from Morten who reaches low in to his register on a number of occasions.
Rating: ***

What There Is
It might seem aimless to use a whole verse to describe someone getting up out of a chair for a drink (“Empty glass/Gets another round/Squeaky chair/Makes another sound”) but in mid-tempo lament “What There Is”, the band balance such lyrical methods against more grandiose statements about life’s stark reality (“It’s what it is/It’s what it was/And what will be here/After us”). There is an effective use of backing vocals to get the main thrust of the song across suggesting that “you can make it all worthwhile” and can “set your name in lights” which is in stark contrast to the drinker who appears lost, maybe hopeless (“Your dark glasses/Sliding down your nose/Bring these proceedings/To a close”).
Rating: ***1/2

Foot of the Mountain
The title track and lead single (#3 in Germany) is undoubtedly different to the rest of the record, a bombastic pop-song with sweeping synths and soaring vocals more reminiscent of recent albums “Lifelines” and “Analogue”. The lyrical hook is the idea of how “silence” is powerful (“silence everything/silence always wins…silence always wins/So silence everything”) and happiness is a home away from the hustle and bustle of the city (“We could live by the foot of the mountain/We could stay there and never come back”). While not utterly convincing lyrically, it’s a powerful pop record and up there with the best singles they’ve released in a long while.
Rating: ****

Real Meaning
Riding a heavy bass synth on the intro, “Real Meaning” soon cedes to a more tender chorus (“You’re the real meaning of the sun/It shows you off to everyone”) and a beautfiully melodic piano refrain. As gentle as it is, the lyrics also point to a sadness with lines like “And I sure will/Miss us when we’re gone” and “Don’t fix you/And leave me/For some other guy”. The middle eight sounds Beatles-inspired but with Waaktaar-Savoy writing, it’s no surprise. Pleasant track.
Rating: ***

Shadowside
“Shadowside” is a beautiful depiction of extreme depression with the protagonist begging for help: “I don’t want to see myself descend/To the shadowside again/If you ever let me go again/To the shadowside, I’ll end”. The imagery of a “shadow side” is simple but effective and Morten’s falsetto leads us in to an extended, orchestra-backed closing.
Rating: ****

Nothing is Keeping You Here
More tasty adult rock with this melodic little number about a person at a crossroads in their life. A simple lyric is brightened up by a punchy rhythm and another strong keyboard riff. It reminds me of one of the middling tracks from their 1990 album “East of the Sun” – but better.
Rating: ***1/2

Mother Nature Goes to Heaven
If the early part of the album was synth-heavy, the band have stacked the middle with a rockier sound. The guitar-tinged “Mother Nature Goes to Heaven” throbs with a powerful bassline and a melodic chorus chord sequence. Dealing with a life that’s gone off track a little (“Things you could do asleep/In a not too distant past/Are trying your patience/Harder now”) the message is that these difficulties are nothing compared to the big picture (“It pales somewhat to the fact/That Mother Nature Goes to heaven”). Completely hits the mark and probably the best song on the record.
Rating: *****

Sunny Mystery
“Sunny Mystery” underlines how you can’t escape the past (“You can climb the highest mountain/To try dissolve the memories/In case you never knew it/You can’t undo it”) or understand what lies ahead (“No one knows for sure/The outcome of this sunny mystery”). The life analogy gets a little overwrought at times (“Life is the dream that you wake up to/Dreams are the life from which you wake”) but this is an effective and urgent dark number.
Rating: ****

Start the Simulator
Possibly the most contentious song on the album is the peculiar, ambient “Start the Simulator”. With a minimal synth instrumentation that increases gradually and the lyrical quirkiness that evokes 2005’s “White Dwarf”, it seems the band have thrown together a prize turkey. But the strength is in the subtlety and it’s the eccentric feel that turns this in to a beautifully addictive piece of music. A surprisingly fitting finale.
Rating: ***1/2

Summary
“Foot of the Mountain” is a tight, cohesive album, sensibly restricted to 10 tracks that checks in well under three quarters of an hour. It’s a far cry from the bloated hour-long efforts of recent years, usually inflated with 2-3 completely unnecessary filler tracks. Not only do they get that right but it seems largely they’ve avoided filler material this time around with only the unambitious but inoffensive “Real Meaning” seeming like it might be more at home on a Magne solo record. In spite of not being a fan of synth, the material works and is an album they should be rightly proud of.

Edit: Order from play.com here.

This is about the chart, not art.

When I declared in a hyperbolic manner a few days ago that Magne F fans were “horrified” with the new a-ha single I was quickly pulled up for my “exaggeration”.  Which is fair enough – that’s what hyperbole is.  So let me simply say that they many seem discontented.

The focus of their ire?  The new a-ha single “Foot of the Mountain” is a shameless re-working of a track called “The Longest Night” that appeared on [a-ha keyboardist] Magne’s 2008 solo album “A Dot of Black In The Blue Of Your Bliss”.  How shameless?  Well, you decide.

Listen to “The Longest Night” on Magne F’s MySpace page.	Listen to a-ha’s new    single “Foot of the Mountain“.

So what’s the big deal?  The vocal majority of Magne fans have issues with the new a-ha song.  Points made publically on a relevant Facebook group are many and varied.  Some think that interfering with the song in the way the band did was completely unnecessary given what a strong recording the original was … and that the new one does not match up.  Some think the new chorus is lyrically detached from the rest of the song.  Other points made are that it is “lazy”, that one should not cover “god”, that hearing Magne’s song first makes it hard to appreciate the new one and that it is “too polished”.

Some counter-points include the view that Morten’s vocal is superior to Magne’s and improves the song; and that the track may actually have been written for the band before Magne decided to throw it on to his solo record.  That’s a good point.

But what do I think? 

I have to admit to not recalling the Magne song at all when I first heard “Foot of the Mountain” – in fact I immediately thought I was listening to something Keane had written for them.  It turns out I did hear “The Longest Night” on Magne’s webpage about a year ago and saw him perform it at a gig last May.  I think it’s a very good track but that’s in the context of the lower expectations I have for Magne’s music. 

Without the handicap of being attached to the Magne song, and so judging “Foot of the Mountain” on its own merits, I think a-ha have a really great pop song on their hands.  

This single is all about getting on the radio, not creating an artistic masterpiece.  To that end they have a polished, catchy pop-song with a great hook and a superior vocal from Morten.  

To hold a-ha to some higher creative moral standard is really counter-productive.  They should do whatever it takes to get a hit whether it be a cover version (“Crying in the Rain” was an immense recording) or with the assistance of Max Martin or any other songwriters for hire.  This is about the chart, not art. 

As far as I’m concerned the solo albums should be nothing more than a sandbox and not a place for the band member’s best material.  There aren’t significant numbers of fans buying the solo work these days so if they write 12 solid tunes (which Magne did on his “Past Perfect Future Tense” album) it will go unnoticed (“What’s the point of writing songs that no one hears?”).  

I’m fairly certain that 99% of Capital Radio’s audience who might hear “Foot of the Mountain” have never heard “The Longest Night” or had any idea that Magne releases solo music – in fact many may not know specifically who Magne is.  And it’s this audience that are key to putting a-ha back in the charts – a few thousand loyal a-ha fans can’t do it alone.  

Unfortunate as it is that some fans are disappointed that the band have plundered an existing recording, I can assure them that, as someone who is not “Magne-fied”, I think the new a-ha single is a winner.

And if it’s not? Well it’s only pop music.

[Movie Review] Rambo

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz, Matthew Marsden, Graham McTavish, Paul Schulze

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Genre: Action

Cert: 18

Released: 2007 

 

I’m thankful that the Rambo franchise pretty much passed me by in the eighties.  ”First Blood” (1982), “Rambo: First Blood Part II” (1985) and “Rambo III” (1988) show a troubling trajectory on review sites like imdb.com and rottentomatoes.com, the first well reviewed the latter two less enthusiastically received. 

I checked out the first movie as a means to get somewhat familiar with Sylvester Stallone’s titular character, John Rambo.  He was a Vietnam vet who had been subjected to daily torture as a prisoner of war.  After escaping captivity, he returned to the US to find the American public outwardly hostile to his part in a vilified war.  He becomes a drifter and ends up in a small town called Hope in Washington State in order to try and track down an army friend.  Local sheriff (Brian Dennehy) tells him to leave as he doesn’t like his look, Rambo refuses and goes a little bit mad, there’s a scuffle, a manhunt and, what is really a storm in a teacup, becomes a regional incident.

It was utter nonsense, hence I ignored the next two movies.

“Rambo” is seemingly set in present day, almost 20 years on from John’s last adventure (in Afghanistan, would you believe).  He now lives in Thailand, near the Burmese border, enjoying a relatively peaceful retirement from slaughtering people.  But, setting the backdrop for the story, are a series of scenes from Burma where the ruling junta murder, maim and rape villagers while kidnapping kids to join their violent army.  

A team of religious missionaries track Rambo down and request his help in navigating them up the Salween River in order for them to deliver humanitarian help to a Burmese village.  He initially refuses but one of them (Julie Benz) convinces him to change his mind through gentle female persuasion.  

During the trip Rambo is forced to violently defend his passengers from pirates and up-tight missionary leader Michael Burnett (Paul Schulze) informs him that they won’t be requiring his help to get back and says he will report the incident.  Rambo leaps in to action, throwing Burnett against the wall and yelling: “They would’ve raped her fifty times and cut your fucking heads off.  Who are you?  Who are any of you?”  That was awesome.

Anyway, they – of course – go missing and the local pastor comes to Rambo to request his help transporting a team of mercenaries back down the river to find them.  Rambo knows that the small armed team won’t be able to deal with the junta if they come up against them and in spite of being ordered to stay with the boat by angry former SAS man Lewis (Graham McTavish) Rambo can’t help but get involved in a battle to the death.  Let the killing begin… 

I had heard that Rambo had a hell of a body count and I wasn’t – if you excuse the seeming inappropriateness – disappointed.  There’s no doubt that it’s all utterly ridiculous.  Ignoring the tragic reality of what is actually happening in Burma at the moment, Stallone (who co-wrote and also directs) goes out of his way to paint the Burmese junta as being almost cartoonish in their evil – rapists, cold-blooded murderers, paedophiles and misogynists.  

So, of course you’ll be cheering on the good guys even if the captured missionaries and the hired guns are both led by unlikeable and unreasonable characters.  Rambo says little throughout (perhaps afraid that his 60 year old oddly tight-looking facial muscles might crack a little) but his silent, expressionless demeanour sets us up nicely for when he kicks off his orgy of violence with the cry “live for nothing or die for something”.  There’s also a very tiny flicker of emotion in the Rambo-shaped shell revolving around Benz’s character, Sarah.  That might be something they build on in the upcoming Rambo V. 

There are a couple of fairly gruesome scenes in the first couple of acts of the film so when the bloodthirsty slaughter of the final twenty minutes kicks off you’re pretty well conditioned for it.  Despite there being very little merit to the script, plot or acting and fairly bog-standard direction, Rambo ends up being just about curiously entertaining.