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Their 4th consecutive UK Top 10 single following 'Take On Me', 'The Sun Always Shines On TV' and 'Train Of Thought', 'Hunting' made No. 5 in June 1986.
It's easy enough to forget now just how big A-Ha were for a while in the mid-eighties: it's especially easy if you use the Now albums as your main source of knowledge, since they were rarely allowed to appear by the label WEA, which preferred to divert them to their rival Hits series. Anyway, after a slow start they were genuine stars with a teen following in Britain which outlasted their brief American success - I remember seeing a feature on the making of this video on children's TV at the time. Doubtless Morten Harket's chiseled good looks contributed to this somewhat but they notched up hits in a way they found it harder to do later in their career.
Obviously they're still best-known for punchier electro-pop anthems, but for my money they play to their strengths better with haunting ballads like this one. Which isn't to say that this is a perfect record by any means - it never quite seems to go anywhere but at least it starts to sound like you might want it to It's aged surprisingly well too, or at least this version has: I've never heard the original album track, but the sleeve and label consistently mention that this is the "re-mix" so this may have been considered a selling point. And let's face it, nobody needs to hear 'Take On Me' ever again.
Also appearing on: Now 9, 63
Available on: Hunting High And Low (Deluxe Edition)
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