Hier ist ein Artikel vom Frühjar 1996 (ich weiß leider nicht, aus welcher Zeitschrift - vielleicht weiß das jemand anderes?). Ich finde, er hat einige sehr interessante Aspekte...
a-ha or not a-ha:
A Trio of Individuals
Magne, Paul and Morten don’t fight about their art but for it. Each for his own art: Magne Furuholmen as a painter, Paul Waaktaar Savoy as a leader of his own band, and Morten Harket as a composer and solo artist.
This doesn’t mean that a-ha no longer exists. But at the moment no innovations can be expected from the trio, just from its three members. Rumours that a-ha is falling apart have dogged the three musicians who, up to the present day, have set all the Norwegian records for success on the international pop scene (in no country do many pop stars have the honour of composing music for a James Bond film, as a-ha did for The living Daylights in 1987). Ever since the group headed the charts in country after country, and not only with their breakthrough single Take on Me, people have been forecasting a rapid end to their period as a trio.
It hasn’t turned out that way, if we are to believe the three gentlemen concerned, none of whom exclude the possibility of a re-emerge of a-ha. ‘‘We just have to have something to present,’’ say all three. But many people believe have sung and played together for the last time. The trio has not released a CD since Memorial Beach in spring 1993. As far as the fans are concerned, that’s incredibly long ago. Their more ‘’adult’’ rock (not as melodiously ingratiating to young girls!) didn’t sell nearly as well as their four previous albums which, in conjunction with comprehensive concert tours, helped to make a-ha a household name in Europe and South America, Japan and Australia.
a-ha haven’t given an concert since the pre-Olympic winter days of new year 1994. At one stage, they were mooted as possible composers of the signature tune for the Lillehammer Olympics, but nothing came of that. Since then the Norwegian press – and, yes, the British too - have been speculating as to whether the three have fallen out. We are left with the impression that they are enemies who may never cooperate again.
Some of the speculations have been based on statements by Magne, Paul and Morten themselves. Asked if a-ha is a thing of the past, all three have denied it, albeit unconvincingly. Morten Harket told a Swedish newspaper that the a-ha period was not all sweetness and light but a dearly earned success. He indicated that there were destructive forces involved, more shady sides to cooperation, which he did not wish to experience again because they had such a detrimental effort on all three. The most recent fuel for a-ha’s funeral pyre, as many like to see it, was provided by Paul Waaktaar Savoy (he has taken his American wife’s surname) in one of the lyrics on his new CD with the Savoy band, where he describes a singer who does not do justice to the composer, but ‘’stabbed me in the back’’- The lyric was immediately interpreted as a showdown with Morten.
Of course, such conflicts - and rumours about them - are nothing new in the history of the pop business. Nor is it new that such rumours may give a distorted picture of the conflicts. As regards the three members of a-ha, it is true that they were never a close-knit gang who thought in harmony. On the contrary, they have been three individualists from the start, each with his own rhythm and style, a fact they have never tried to conceal. What brought them and held them together was their common ambition to reach the top as international musicians. They were ‘’mad’ enough to believe it possible when no-one else did. They hardly had anything else in common when they went to London at the beginning of the 1980s with an acoustic guitar, a tape recorder and hardly any money.
For publicity purposes they stood side by side as a trio, although each had his own profile. They exploited the fact that the group consisted of three very different personalities. Morten was not only the vocalist, he was also the front man with the media, the one who spoke and acted, demonstrated involvement and charm, at least most explicitly - and was therefore most exposed. Magne was the clown, the carefree joker who could turn silent and introspective when the questions became too instrusive. Paul was silence personified, the poet of the three, the one who wrote most lyrics and composed most tunes. That is not only how they divided the roles between them, that is how they were, and how they each utilised their image in the presentation of a-ha.
It should not surprise anyone that they were strong forces at work between such creative and ambitious characters, and it has therefore not surprised anyone that each now has his own ‘’career’’. Not as a member of a-ha, but as an artist, each in his own field. For they are artists, also when they appear as a-ha.
Since 1989, Magne Furuholmen has become a painter and has many times exhibited his paintings, water colours and woodcuts, incidentally with increasing success. His style is described as expressionist, with rough, rugged forms, strong colours and frequent musical motifs. His pictures give the impression that the musician in him can express itself better in colour and form than in music. Perhaps that is exactly why music is regaining a place in his life, as the pure joy it originally was.
All three have established homes and families and, now in their mid-thirties, all three have been searching for meaning and peace in their talented lives. After several solo appearances and projects, Morten Harket made his real solo recording debut in autumn 1995, when he showed that he is also a highly capable composer of melodious rock. With the help of poet Håvard Rem, who provided the texts, Harket was able to realise his own musical and mental will in the album Wild Seed. It was a personal testament demonstrating that, both as artist and composer, Morten has his own road to follow.
The only person to be really surprised by this was Paul Waaktaar Savoy, who postponed his own and the Savoy band’s first release until February 1996, Mary is Coming is the a-ha’s composer’s development of his own, Beatles-inspired soft rock. With his wife, Lauren, it is the first time he has written music for himself, i.e. for his own voice. For Savoy is Paul’s own band, while a-ha belonged to neither Magne, Morten nor Paul.
a-ha was the sum of three strong wills. Today these wills express themselves freely in relation to each other. If they were ever to appear on stage or in a studio again, it would be a meeting of three developed artists.
***
Morten Harket has agreed to build bridges between the host country and it’s guests as a presenter during the Eurosong final at Oslo Spektrum. On Saturday 18 May, the day after Norwegian Constitution Day, he will be on stage in front of the cameras and millions of TV viewers with co-presenter Ingvild Bryn, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation’s Washington correspondent.
+++
Jan E. Hansen (1959) is an author and journalist on cultural affairs of Aftenposten, Norway’s leading morning newspaper.
<font size=-1>[ Diese Nachricht wurde geändert von: Mechthild am 2002-01-13 22:24 ]</font>