Hunting High and Low is the debut studio album by the Norwegian synth-pop band a-ha, first released on 10 June 1985 by Warner Bros. Records in Norway and the United States, and then released in the United Kingdom and Europe on 21 October 1985.

The album was recorded at Eel Pie Studios in Twickenham, London, and produced by Tony Mansfield, John Ratcliff and Alan Tarney.

The band went back into the studio to re-record the song for the Hunting High and Low album, but a second UK release in early 1985 was again ignored.

Before releasing their single in the United States, the band undertook the production of a new music video for the song, working with director Steve Barron.

("Love Is Reason" had failed to hit the Norwegian Top 40 earlier in the year), and the band followed its massively successful music video with another critically acclaimed clip for the song.

Starting off as a sequel of sorts, Harket breaks away from his happy ending to join his band in performance amidst mannequins at a rural church, Saint Albans in Teddington, London, which has since become an art gallery.

improved upon the first single's success in the United Kingdom, hitting number one and remaining there for two weeks in January 1986.

It was not released as a 7" in the United States but received rock radio play and a set of remixes again made the dance charts.

Waaktaar based the lyrics for this song on existentialist authors and poets Gunvor Hofmo, Knut Hamsun and Fyodor Dostoevsky, his favourites at the time.

Even as the total number of categories has nearly doubled, only Peter Gabriel has won as many of the awards in a single year, for "Sledgehammer" and "Big Time", also featuring innovative use of animation.

Upon its release in June 1985, Hunting High and Low peaked at number 15 on the Billboard's Top 200 album chart.

[8] Tim DiGravina of AllMusic said retrospectively: "It's a cohesive album with smart pace changeups, and it rarely fails to delight or satisfy a listener's need for a synth pop fix... One can't escape the feeling that Hunting High and Low is a product of the 1980s, but with highs like 'Take On Me' and 'The Sun Always Shines on TV,' and no lows in sight, a-ha's debut is a treat worth relishing.

"[8] Reviewing a 2015 re-issue of the album in The New York Observer, Ron Hart wrote, "Hunting High and Low enjoys a brilliance far beyond its iconic lead single 'Take On Me'.

The influence of this album can be heard today through such bands as Coldplay and Wild Nothing just as the work of early synthpop groups like OMD and Aztec Camera informed [a-ha] in creating these 10 classic tunes.

The deluxe editions of both Hunting High and Low and its follow-up, Scoundrel Days (1986), were released on 6 July 2010 in the United States through Rhino Records.