Norway's a-ha took "Take on Me" to the number one spot on Billboard's Top 40 in 1985, thanks to the award-winning animated video that accompanied it. Still, a-ha contributed rather accordingly to the '80s pop sound, drenching their music with bouncy riffs and employing the keyboard as the foundation to their colorful formula. Headlines and Deadlines: The Hits of a-ha assembles all of their singles together, a definite one-stop for all of their music. Combining ballads and radiant '80s pop, this set includes their most fervent offering in "The Sun Always Shines on T.V.," which hit number 20 in 1986 and originated from Hunting High and Low, the same album that included "Take on Me."

Sakamoto's all-star blend of Western and Eastern music styles is a triumphant success for the composer, and a consistently good listen. On the title track he takes a traditional Japanese folk song and blends it into a funk groove provided by Bootsy Collins, Bill Laswell, and Sly Dunbar. Unlike Byrne and Eno's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, this blend of cultures is coming from the opposing angle and stays truer to the source material. But that track is only one of Sakamoto's approaches, and on several other tracks he joins with Laswell to create a crisp, techno-cultural hybrid that sounds like nothing except like pure Sakamoto. On "Risky," a subdued Iggy Pop lends vocals and lyrics, and doesn't come across as an interloper. And on "Okinawa Song," Sakamoto seamlessly integrates the southern island culture into his grand scheme.

Stay on These Roads is the third studio album by Norwegian band A-ha. It was released on 3 May 1988 by Warner Bros. Records. Six singles were released from the album. A Synclavier, Sequential Circuits Prophet 5, Yamaha DX-7, Roland D-50, and Roland Juno-60 or Roland Juno-106 synthesizers were used in the recording of this album, as was a Yamaha RX-5 drum machine. Stay on These Roads was the band's third studio album. The album's peak on the Billboard 200 was 148. The album was another big hit by A-ha internationally, selling over 4 million copies worldwide. Stay on These Roads achieved Platinum status in Brazil and Gold in the UK, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany and Double Platinum status in France.The album reached #2 in the European top-100 albums sales chart.

After a three-year wait, this album was a bit of a disappointment. Musically, it is his best yet, but it lacked a certain energy that the others had. The songs seemed to replace vivacity with length. The album didn't do very well on the charts; the number 13 single (U.S.), "Everlasting Love," was the biggest hit. Ironically, the best song on this album, "Out of Thin Air," does not use a single synthesizer but instead is a solo piano piece performed by Jones himself. After all those years of electronic music, a song featuring a real instrument is a welcome relief.

The full addition of Alan Wilder to Depeche Mode's lineup created a perfect troika that would last another 11 years, as the combination of Martin Gore's songwriting, Wilder's arranging, and David Gahan's singing and live star power resulted in an ever more compelling series of albums and singles. Construction Time Again, the new lineup's first full effort, is a bit hit and miss nonetheless, but when it does hit, it does so perfectly. Right from the album's first song, "Love, In Itself," something is clearly up; Depeche never sounded quite so thick with its sound before, with synths arranged into a mini-orchestra/horn section and real piano and acoustic guitar spliced in at strategic points. Two tracks later, "Pipeline" offers the first clear hint of an increasing industrial influence (the bandmembers were early fans of Einstürzende Neubauten), with clattering metal samples and oddly chain gang-like lyrics and vocals…

Memorial Beach is the fifth album by the Norwegian band A-ha, released in 1993. The album was recorded primarily at Prince's Paisley Park studios outside Minneapolis in the U.S. Memorial Beach featured three UK Top 50 singles for the band, "Move to Memphis" (released as a single in 1991, almost two years before the album), "Dark is the Night" and "Angel in the Snow". While the album did not chart on the U.S. Billboard 200 and would be the band's last to be released there, the single "Dark Is the Night" peaked at #11 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, their last U.S. charting to date. Q magazine listed the album as one of the 50 best albums of 1993: "If ever a band deserved reappraisal on the back of an album then it was a-ha!"