A-ha
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40 free A-ha trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
A-ha are often filed under one song, but the Norwegian trio's catalogue runs far deeper than a single pencil-sketch video. Across four decades they have scored hits in Europe, South America and the United States, written a film theme, gone on hiatus, said farewell and come back again. This quiz covers the hits of A-ha and the stories around them: how "Take On Me" flopped twice before it conquered the charts, who made the famous video, which singles followed it, and what Morten Harket, Magne Furuholmen and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy did next. It is pitched for anyone who remembers the 1980s charts, with easier openers for casual listeners and a few deep cuts for fans who own the albums.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which animation technique, applied to about 3,000 frames over 16 weeks, made A-ha's "Take On Me" video famous?
Rotoscoping
Rotoscoping means tracing over live-action footage frame by frame, which is why the pencil-drawn hero moves like a real person.
Q 02A-ha performed the title song for which James Bond film, the first to star Timothy Dalton as 007?
The Living Daylights
The Living Daylights nearly had Morten Harket on screen too: he was offered a small part as a henchman and turned it down, suspecting he was wanted for his fame.
Q 03Which rapper's 2013 hit "Feel This Moment", featuring Christina Aguilera, is built on the riff from A-ha's "Take On Me"?
Pitbull
Pitbull took the borrowed riff into the US top ten, and Morten Harket walked on as a surprise guest when the song was performed at the 2013 Billboard Music Awards.
Q 04A-ha's stripped-back acoustic 2017 version of "Take On Me" was used in which 2018 superhero film?
Deadpool 2
Deadpool 2 used the hushed version taped on the remote Norwegian island of Giske, where the band played in secrecy with phones banned from the room.
Q 05A-ha chose producer John Ratcliff's London studio for their early demos because it housed which arcade game?
Space Invaders
Space Invaders proved a lucky draw: Ratcliff introduced the trio to his own manager, Terry Slater, and the two men went on to manage A-ha together.
Q 06Whose ballad "The Power of Love" kept A-ha's "Take On Me" at number two in the UK for three weeks?
Jennifer Rush
Jennifer Rush had Britain's biggest single of the year with it, so the song that topped the American chart stalled one place short in the UK.
Q 07Which American duo first recorded "Crying in the Rain", the Carole King co-write that A-ha covered in 1990?
The Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers grew close to the band after the cover's success and presented them with a set of guitars, which A-ha went on playing.
Q 08Which computer-animated Dire Straits video beat A-ha's "Take On Me" to Video of the Year at the 1986 MTV awards?
Money for Nothing
Money for Nothing took the top prize, yet A-ha still left with eight trophies from the night, six of them for the pencil-sketch video.
Q 09Morten Harket's 20-second note on a 2000 A-ha single outlasted the famous long note in which Bill Withers song?
Lovely Day
Lovely Day ends on an 18-second note, and Harket's 20.2 seconds on the comeback single beat it to set a European record for a top-40 pop song.
Q 10Morten Harket of A-ha co-hosted which annual international TV event when Oslo staged it in 1996?
Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision Song Contest viewers saw him do double duty: besides presenting with Ingvild Bryn, Harket sang the show's opening number himself.
Q 11The riff of A-ha's "Take On Me" was partly inspired by the playing of Ray Manzarek, a member of which American band?
The Doors
The Doors were an early influence on the trio, and the first, punkier version of the song was written to offset a riff the teenagers feared was too pop.
Q 12A-ha recorded their 1993 album Memorial Beach at Paisley Park, the Minnesota studio complex built by which pop star?
Prince
Prince had opened the complex only six years earlier; the album made there sold poorly, and A-ha drifted into a hiatus the following year.
Q 13For a 2007 Amnesty International charity album, A-ha covered "#9 Dream", a song by which former Beatle?
John Lennon
Q 21At which football stadium did A-ha draw 198,000 paying fans in 1991, a crowd that earned a Guinness World Record?
Maracanã
Maracanã was sold out for the band's headline night at a Rio festival, yet the music press all but ignored it, a snub the trio later called a devastating blow.
Q 22A-ha's set was cut to three songs in July 2005 at which city's edition of the Live 8 concerts?
Berlin
Berlin heard only three songs: Morten Harket's earpiece failed mid-set, and the long pause that followed used up the time for a fourth song the band had rehearsed.
Q 23Magne Furuholmen of A-ha formed the supergroup Apparatjik in 2008 with bassist Guy Berryman of which British band?
Coldplay
Coldplay's ties to the Norwegians run deep: the band's singer once introduced Furuholmen on stage as the best player of his instrument in the world.
John Lennon said the 1974 song came to him in a dream, and it peaked, fittingly, at number 9 on the American chart.
Q 14Which animated sitcom licensed A-ha's "Take On Me" video for a scene in its episode "Breaking Out Is Hard to Do"?
Family Guy
Family Guy sends Chris into the pencil-sketch world while he fetches milk; the show held the rights to the real video but redrew it to simplify production.
Q 15Which baseball team made A-ha's "Take On Me" its seventh-inning stretch song, thanks to outfielder Michael Morse?
Washington Nationals
Washington Nationals crowds took it up because Morse walked to the plate to it, and belting out the high chorus became a ballpark tradition.
Q 16Morten Harket said an early version of A-ha's "Take On Me" sounded like an advert for which chewing gum?
Juicy Fruit
Juicy Fruit was his verdict on the tune when it was still called "Miss Eerie", yet he also said its keyboard riff had the character of a universal hit.
Q 17In A-ha's "Take On Me" video, the comic-book hero played by Morten Harket first appears competing in which motorsport?
Sidecar racing
Sidecar racing opens the comic that a café customer is reading, and the two rivals he beats return later as the villains who chase the couple.
Q 18Which A-ha single went one better than "Take On Me" by topping the UK chart for two weeks in January 1986?
The Sun Always Shines on TV
The Sun Always Shines on TV was recorded while two of the band lay on camp beds in the studio with flu, and it won the British number one their first hit had just missed.
Q 19A-ha earned a Grammy nomination in 1986 but lost to Sade in which category?
Best New Artist
Best New Artist went to Sade that night, but the nomination capped a debut year in which the trio had also topped the American singles chart.
Q 20Which director, who made Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" video, also directed A-ha's "Take On Me" video?
Steve Barron
Steve Barron saw both videos, and his clip for Toto's "Africa", pass a billion YouTube views, and the A-ha one rescued a song that had already flopped twice.
Q 24Which British synth band's "A Question of Lust" did A-ha cover for a BBC Radio 2 session in 2009?
Depeche Mode
Depeche Mode were the 1980s act Magne Furuholmen said he felt most connected to, which explains the choice for the Dermot O'Leary show.
Q 25Which former member of the Hollies sang backing vocals on two songs from A-ha's 2005 album Analogue?
Graham Nash
Graham Nash, one of the band's well-known admirers, lent his harmonies to "Over the Treetops" and "Cosy Prisons".
Q 26Which veteran film composer clashed with A-ha while co-writing and producing their James Bond theme song?
John Barry
John Barry found the band exhausting and they found him hard to like, yet Pål Waaktaar admitted his string arrangement made the track sound like Bond.
Q 27Which hitmaker behind Britney Spears's debut single reworked A-ha's "Analogue" into a UK top-ten hit?
Max Martin
Max Martin was brought in to give the song a catchier chorus and plainer lyrics, and it became the band's first British top-ten single since 1988.
Q 28In 2012 all three members of A-ha were knighted by Norway's king with which royal honour for services to music?
Order of St. Olav
Order of St. Olav knighthoods reward distinguished service to the country, and King Harald honoured the trio two years after their farewell tour.
Q 29In A-ha's "Take On Me" video, one of the two villains smashes the looking glass with which tool?
Pipe wrench
Pipe wrench in hand, the racers trap the woman inside the comic, so the hero has to tear a hole in a paper wall to send her home.
Q 30Which comeback single did Paul Waaktaar-Savoy write in a hurry for A-ha's 1998 Nobel Peace Prize Concert appearance?
Summer Moved On
Summer Moved On was meant for a one-off reunion, but the performance led to a new album and the song became a radio number one across much of Europe.