The Knack had the misfortune to appear just about the time that lots of exciting new, raw music was coming out - Ramones, Clash, Elvis Costello, the Jam, etc. etc. In contrast they sounded like well-crafted prefab pop, not bad but the competition was Stiff.
Well, that’s the part where I want to sing along with the beginning of the Rapper’s Delight rap, so that sounds just right!
True, but it’s worth noting that The Knack did better commercially than all those artists combined (which is probably the main reason why the group was so loathed).
jerez you must be quite good if you think that that solo is “not that hard” to play. The finger strength alone, to play all those bends in perfect tune, as well as the fast right hand picking, would for me, disqualify it from the “not that hard” category.
[quote=“by-tor, post:44, topic:799008”]
jerez you must be quite good if you think that that solo is “not that hard” to play. The finger strength alone, to play all those bends in perfect tune, as well as the fast right hand picking, would for me, disqualify it from the “not that hard” category.
[/QUOTE]I agree, not so easy. That doesn’t make it good, though…
Stuck in meetings all day. Ugh.
The Sharona solo is hard. Jerez, it’s not Jeff Beck but it’s up there with Knopfler’s work on Sultans.
Elliott Easton is a great player and yeah, has a distinct voice. I love the Cars first couple of albums, but they didn’t target rocking as hard as The Knack did. The Cars were poised, not edgy.
No, that doesn’t make it good, but the musicality does.
Nearly four decades later, “My Sharona” still rocks. There are a small handful of songs where, if I’m just sitting around and one of them comes on the radio, I just have to get up and bounce around to the music. “Sharona” is one of those.
The rest of Get the Knack is, IMHO, good but not great. I’ve got the album, and other than “Good Girls Don’t,” I honestly would have to look at the jacket to have my memory jogged about what was on it. And YMMV, but even at the time I found “Good Girls Don’t” dated, like hadn’t the whole notion that ‘good girls don’t’ gone totally out the window sometime between 1967 and 1969?
“Good Girls Don’t” may be my favorite song on the album. “My Sharona” as iconic as it is, is somewhere around my fourth or fifth favorite song on the album. “Oh Tara,” “Your Number or Your Name” would round out my favorites, then maybe “My Sharona,” but I’m sure some of that has to do with overexposure to the song. “She’s So Selfish” is strong, as well, though I’m a little soured by the lyrical content. And “Let Me Out” is as great an album opener as you get.
I’m average at what I do, but I’ve been playing for a long time, and guitarists’ hands get a lot stronger after a certain point.
ETA: Thank you for saying “for me.” It takes so little humility and makes it so much easier for others to maintain a conversation.
Agreed.
That guitar solo in *My Sharona *is one of the best. End of sentence. And not only was it lightening in a bottle, but the guitarist could recreate it. That is not an easy solo - lots of muting and 16th notes and bending and weird shit - I saw a live TeeVee performance of the song somewhere along the line and that guy nailed that solo note for friggin’ note.
Ah! You know who that sounds like you’re describing? Randy Rhoads. Totally disciplined and a total pro at replicating complex work. Had never connected those dots but that actually works. Interesting…
When their second album came out I made a morbid note to myself to find out how many times “little girls” were mentioned in the first two albums, but never got around to it, and just retreated, plenty skeeved.
Re the Cars first album - What stood out for me was probably the finest production values I’d heard (at that time) since Pink Floyd.
ETA: Boston’s production was pretty amazing too, but I didn’t think they had anywhere near the crystalline brilliance of sound that that Cars album had.
To derail a little further…The honour of seeing RR with the Blizzard of Oz in '80 was a wondrous flying V clinic, to be sure.
Held the thing almost vertically the whole time.
Live TeeVee performance previously mentioned. I repeat, killer solo (it starts at about 2:40 if you want to skip the foreplay).
Yeah, that’s the one neg point I have is that I really have to turn off listening to the lyrics too closely sometimes. “I always get it up, for the touch of the younger kind” does cause me to cringe a bit.
The bass player is rocking a Vigier in that video. Talk about ahead of the times.
My Sharona is one of those perfectly crafted rock songs that I still crank up when it comes on, along with The Hollies’ Long Cool Woman and others.
I think the Knack were guys who had been around awhile. Fieger was like just a year younger than Tom Waits. So he had had plans, and the knack was not a spontaneous thing, or the new thing. Christ, they were beatles fans, and then they told you they were comparable. It seems like there was a lot of hype there, and a little desperation. That and the little girl talk wasn’t too cool then. But I don’t think the critics stopped them from having hits. They seemed to do that themselves.
Too soon?