“Take on Me” by A-ha
Phong: If I would have built a time machine when I was a kid for an older me to find, it would have contained Lego bricks, the book “The Stinky Cheese Man,” and the music video for A-ha’s “Take on Me.” The blending of pencil rendered animation and live-action shots blew my mind. Roger Rabbit was fine in its own right. But those race car thugs had wrenches. It was so outside of what I knew what was possible. Also on the plus side,I really liked the song. Up-tempo synths, memorable hook, and a clincher of a high note. It was everything I wanted from the 80s.
I would resist the rest of the 80s until the mid-aughts when there was enough distance for ironic nostalgia.
5songpjct: This song is one of two in this list you note are responsible for your design career, what was it about this video that triggered this?
Phong: It was really an early example that anything was possible. That the line between reality and my imagination is blurry. Once my brain knew that, then I was allowed to be creative, to create my own reality as needed. I wouldn’t have articulated that as a kid, but it rationalized becoming a designer a lot easier later in my life.
TOMORROW, when you make a pop song ironically and it ends up being a hit.