“Take On Me” hits two billion YouTube views — Rolling Stone

First A-ha played their way into millions of hearts, now their video for “Take On Me” flickered across two billion screens – a milestone.

A-ha: Eighties pioneers

The pop song is the first video from the 1980s to exceed this mark on YouTube. And not for nothing: The video for A-ha’s “Take On Me” is convincing with a creative combination of camera work and the rotoscoped look of animated drawings. It was directed in 1985 by Steve Barron, who also helped Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” (1982) to get a music video.

Watch the record video here:

Record debut

“Take On Me” is the Norwegian band’s debut – the first single released from their first album “Hunting High And Low” (1985). The synth-heavy song brought rapid success to the trio of singer Morten Harket, guitarist Pål Waaktaar-Savoy and keyboardist Magne Furholmen. The song entered the international charts, reaching number 1 in their home country of Norway, neighboring Sweden, the USA (the first Norwegian act to do so), West Germany, Austria and even far away Australia. Several gold and platinum awards followed for A-ha.

YouTube’s billion dollar club

Another iconic video from the eighties also reached a milestone last week: Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (1983) now has over a billion views. In the nineties, “November Rain” (1991) by Guns N’ Roses is at the top, and in the 2000s, “Axel F” (2005) by Crazy Frog. The 2010s brought not only the first video to ever cross the billion mark on YouTube with Psy’s “Gangnam Style” (2012), but also the song that currently has the most views: “Despacito” (2017) by Luis Fonsi and Papa Yankee. In the current decade, Future and Drake are at the top with “Life is Good” (2020). All of the titles mentioned above have already cracked the two billion views mark – “Despacito” is even at over eight billion. A-ha and “Take On Me” are also in good company.