The Knack is back

[Mike]

1970s Pop Icons Still Going Strong

TULALIP, WASHINGTON - Twenty-six years ago today, August 26, 1979, one of the signature songs of the 1970s hit Number One on the charts. And if way back then, you obeyed the urge to "Get the Knack," the good news is the Knack is back.

In the summer of '79 disco ruled the airwaves until, from out of car radios everywhere another,altogether different sound emerged.

'My Sharona' by L.A. band The Knack soared to Number One and started a vogue for skinny tie power pop.

"It's still surprising that My Sharona is as popular as it is," comments Doug Feiger, lead singer and chief songwriter of The Knack. "It's one of the biggest records of all time, and one of the most popular songs in history."

Feiger says The Knack's success also unleashed an unholy backlash, which he puts down to jealousy. The press was critical of everything, from the band's "dirty" lyrics to Feiger's leering expression on the cover of the album "Get The Knack." Most of all, the band took heat for borrowing the look and sound of the Beatles. That still gets a rise out of Feiger.

"What was Beatlesque about it?" he says."That misperception was created I don't know how."

The Knack took flack for their "dirty" lyrics, although Feiger says he never wrote anything as suggestive or misogynistic as, say, the Rolling Stones.

After three albums, Capitol Records dropped the Knack, but the band never broke up. They're back on the road and made a stop at the Tulalip Amphitheatre.

"The Knack is all about fun," Feiger says. "If you ain't havin' fun, there's something wrong."

And of course the band plays "My Sharona."

source of the story

My Sharona Songfacts

[Shawna]

Hearing anything from "Get the Knack" takes me back to high school football games and dances. We wore out that cassette tape... and the lyrics were so risque! "Good girls don't... but I do."

[RonJonSurfer]

The hype when they first came out was that THEY were the next Beatles. tough to live up to that hype.

[edna]

I never danced that much... We were a bunch of posh kids by then (well, not really "kids", rather over twenty...) and we had a whole disco for us, we used to play it over and over when it came out, I guess it was by the end of the seventies... or mid seventies? What a great song...

[_jr_]

1979 Edna. I know. I was a Sophmore, and you couldn't go anywhere without hearing that blasted thing.

It seems every decade there is one horribly bad song that everyone loves. OK, more than one, but man, that's a bad song.

80's ~ Sudio by Phill Collins

90's ~ Achy Breaky Heart by that refrigerator with a mullet. (I think it was the 90's anyway.