Morten Harket

Morten Harket (born September 14, 1959 in Kongsberg) is the lead singer of the Norwegian pop band A-ha, who have released eight studio albums and topped the charts in several countries after their breakthrough hit Take On Me in 1985.

The son of Henny and Reidar Harket, and brother to Kjetil and Håkon, Morten grew up in Asker. Early musical influences include Uriah Heep, Queen, Johnny Cash, David Bowie and Peter Gabriel. Before joining a-ha in 1982, Harket appeared on the Oslo club scene as the singer for blues outfit Souldier Blue.

After a-ha took a break in 1994, Morten pursued a solo career, and has so far released three albums. Two of those albums were sung in Norwegian, but his 1995 album, Wild Seed, became more of an International success because of its English lyrics. Morten worked with Håvard Rem, a Norwegian poet, to write most of the songs. A Kind of Christmas Card and Spanish Steps were the most successful numbers. The rest were either easy, simple songs, or more profound ones, like East Timor, and Brodsky Tune, which had messages in them.

Morten holds the record for the longest single note, for a man, in a song, having held a note for 20.2 seconds in a-ha's 2000 song Summer Moved On. This overtook the previous record of 18 seconds held by Bill Withers on the song Lovely Day. The longest note held by a woman is 23 seconds by Barbra Streisand in her 1979 album "Barbra Streisand and Other Musical Instruments", song, "I Never Has Seen Snow".