Product Description
Career-retrospective album features 19 singles covering over 20 years of a-ha's hits.

1. Take On Me
2. The Sun Always Shines On T.V.
3. Train Of Thought
4. Hunting High And Low
5. I've Been Losing You
6. Cry Wolf
7. Manhattan Skyline
8. The Living Daylights
9. Stay On These Roads
10. Touchy!
11. Crying In The Rain
12. Move To Memphis
13. Dark Is The Night For All
14. Shapes That Go Together
15. Summer Moved On
16. Minor Earth Major Sky
17. Velvet
18. Forever Not Yours
19. Lifelines

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003EAWH8G/?tag=imwan-20

One thing is true. "Take Me On" will always be one of the songs of the 80's. An ultimate single.

It is my assumption, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, that there is nothing on this compilation that is not already on one of the band's albums. No non-album tracks or special single mixes, etc. Is that right?

Three reasons to avoid:
1. This contains the edited version of "The Sun Always Sines on T.V."
2. This contains the band's reworked version of "Living Daylights" from "Stay On These Roads" — not the version from the film soundtrack.
3. a-ha plans to release a more comprehensive 2-disc hits collection later this year.

My copy (Warner Strategic Marketing 5046-76225-2) has the film version of "The Living Daylights." It also has a few single edits/mixes as well - "Train of Thought" and "Hunting High and Low" are remixed, and "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." and "Manhattan Skyline" are 7" edits as well. Same goes for the three tracks from Minor Earth, Major Sky ("Summer Moved On," "Velvet" and the title track).

I agree that if and when a 2-disc set comes out, that's the thing to get. But if you're an a-ha fan in a pinch (and you didn't buy it when it was an import in '04), it's not a bad set at all.

That's a reason for me to get it. We already have the album version. Sometimes single edits are difficult to find on CD.

"Take On Me" was pretty good too!

oh yeah, wrote that wrong. I was typing on my Droid this morning.

That is strange. My copy has the same catalog number. It was manufactured in Argentina. The other single edits you mention are also on there, but it is definitely "The Living Daylights" from SOTR. Where was yours made?

By the way, Mike, your "Second Disc" site is always a treat to read. Keep up the excellent work!

Mine's manufactured in Argentina too! That's really weird. But mine definitely has the film version of "The Living Daylights"; it more or less matches up timing-wise with the versions on Headlines and Deadlines: The Hits of a-ha, and two Bond discs in my collection (the 1999 pressing of The Best of Bond...James Bond and the 2003 reissue of the film soundtrack).

Why on Earth did a-ha see fit to re-record the song, anyway? I remember reading that Paul Waaktaar was upset at having to share co-writing credit with Bond composer John Barry but that synth-filled take on Stay on These Roads can't match the production (however dated) on the film version. It's easily one of my top 007 title songs (not an opinion shared by many, I'm sure).

And David, thank you so much for the kind words! So glad to have such good readers.

Hmm. All I can figure is we have different pressings of the same disc and perhaps they realized the mistake or were asked to replace the Bond version or vice versa between pressings. I did not buy this disc when it first came out, since it contained no new material, but I caved a couple of years later, thinking it would be nice to have to play in the car. But I wound up hating it immediately because of the "The Sun Always Sines on T.V." edit and the longer but "wrong" version of "The Living Daylights," which are my two favorite songs here. I re-burned a copy that replaced the offending tracks with the ones I wanted and double-cased it with the original, and that's the one I play. But it's interesting to hear about the weirdness with the Bond song.

I would stay away from this pressing and buy a European one from 2004. Sounds to me like this thing has gotten hacked up and put back together in diferent terrotories from people who didn't have a clue. The original pressed in europe version is 100% proper seven-inch single mixes, edits and versions . Also stay away from the UK copy that dropped tracks to add video as well.

Love this site... first post here. I thought I'd chime in to say that I also have the Argentina version of this CD, and it contains the movie/John Barry version of Living Daylights, not the album version.

I'd also echo what someone else said... stay away from the UK version of this CD called "The Definitive Singles Collection 1984-2004" (but with the same cover art). It replaces the single versions of "Minor Earth Major Sky" and "Forever Not Yours" found on "Singles 1984-2004" with the video for "Take on Me."

Also, someone else mentioned that a 2CD a-ha anthology will be released later this year. There are also supposed to be 2CD "collector's editions" of the first two albums, "Hunting High and Low" and "Scoundrel Days." These were announced by the band's management months ago, and unfortunately, there has been no further news. I hope these will still happen before the end of the year.

The drummer in the Take On Me video didn't exist. The track had a drum machine, and they hired an actor to beat on a snare drum for the video.