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A-ha, the multi-platinum selling legendary Norwegian trio, will release a 15 track Acoustic Hits MTV Unplugged album on October 6. This is the first time in the band’s 30 year history that they have recorded an acoustic album…

Norwegian pop trio A-ha has had their catalog revamped and repackaged a number of times since their inception in the 1980s, but 2016's Time and Again: The Ultimate A-ha brings their canon of hits up to date with the inclusion of material from each of their ten studio albums. The first disc of this set is generally concerned with their hits, beginning, appropriately, with the sunny synths of "Take on Me" and winding chronologically through the years to the sweeping orchestral ballad "Under the Makeup" from their 2015 LP Cast in Steel. The expected tracks like "Touchy!," "The Living Daylights," and their lush cover of the Everly Brothers' "Crying in the Rain" are all included alongside later-era cuts like 2000's "Summer Moved On," which was a number one hit in their home country. The second disc in the set is dedicated entirely to alternate mixes and remixes of their hits, some of which hold some historical value like Jellybean's previously unreleased 1986 remix of "Cry Wolf" and Justin Strauss' rare dub mix of "You Are the One."

Pal Waaktaar and Magne Furuholmen, formerly of Bridges, formed a-ha in the early '80s. Morten Harket joined the duo, and they left for the now "legendary London flat" (so called because of its state of disrepair) to make it. By late 1983 they had achieved part of that goal by signing to WEA. "Take on Me" took three times to become a hit in the U.K., eventually hitting number two in November 1985…

Recorded at the Oslo Spektrum in December 2010, Ending on a High Note: The Final Concert is a chance for those a-ha fans who couldn't get a ticket for the Norwegian synth pop trio's last ever live performance to bask in the glory of their triumphant swan song. Their third live album, following 2001's Live at Valhall and 2003's's How Can I Sleep with Your Voice in My Head, features 16 of the 21 tracks that were played on the globe-conquering tour's emotional finale, which wisely celebrates the entirety of their career, with every one of their nine studio albums represented (although songs from 1990's East of the Sun, West of the Moon and 1993's Memorial Beach are only included in the CD/DVD edition).

It follows the band on tour, telling the full story of how three young men followed their impossible dream of becoming Norwegian pop stars. When Take On Me reached number 1 on Billboard in the US in 1985 the dream came true. Or did it?

While not quite as strong as the band's debut, Scoundrel Days is still a-ha succeeding as a marketed "pretty boy" band which can connect musically and lyrically as much as any musical sacred cow. The opening two songs alone make for one of the best one-two opening punches around: the tense edge of the title track, featuring one of Morten Harket's soaring vocals during the chorus and a crisp, pristine punch in the music, and "The Swing of Things," a moody, elegant number with a beautiful synth/guitar arrangement (plus some fine drumming courtesy of studio pro Michael Sturgis) and utterly lovelorn lyrical sentiments that balance on the edge of being overheated without quite going over.

Ha! Ha! Ha! is a bruising album, a tsunami of a set that epitomized the fire and fury of its age. Icy to its core, producer Steve Lillywhite brilliantly captured both the band's urgency and the brittleness of their sound. Like the implosion of gases that ignited the Big Bang, Ha!-Ha!-Ha! hangs in the millisecond before the ensuing explosion, trembling with ferocious tension and fierce anticipation of the coming storm…