While they wouldn't be considered a one-hit wonder in their native country, the Norwegian band A-ha, comprised of vocalist Morten Harket, guitarist Paul Waaktaar-Savoy, and keyboardist Magne Furuholmen had one of the biggest hits in the US in the '80s with "Take On Me."
A-ha release an earlier version of the song in Europe in 1984 that found success in the band's home country (No. 3 on the charts) but more or less flopped elsewhere. The next year a new version was released in the US along with a new music video for "Take On Me."
Thanks largely to MTV playing the song's music video, "Take On Me" crept into the top 40 charts in the US and eventually spent a week as the No. 1 song — it also reached No. 2 on the UK charts, according to Songfacts. The album featuring "Take On Me," "Hunting High and Low," went on to sell more than 55 million albums.
The band's keyboardist Magne Furuholmen told Rolling Stone in 2010, "I have no doubt that the video made the song a hit. The song has a super catchy riff, but it is a song that you have to hear a few times. And I don't think it would've been given the time of day without the enormous impact of the video."