Switch to the mobile version of this page.

The Measure

Archives | RSS | Tips | Twitter

« British Criminals Simply Cannot Get… | Hoyt-Schermerhorn Subway Station Ge… »

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Music The Knack's Teen Horniness

Posted by Mark Asch on Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 11:04 AM

Definitely the best album ever to feature a photo of an obviously bra-less girl in a wifebeater on the cover (sorry, Dying to Say This To You by The Sounds).

Definitely the best album ever to feature a photo of an obviously bra-less girl in a wifebeater on the cover (sorry, Dying to Say This To You by The Sounds).

Doug Fieger, the lead singer of The Knack, died of lung cancer on Valentine's Day; in the late-70s, the band emerged from a very professionally polished L.A. power-pop scene (which also birthed Jack Lee, Paul Collins and Peter Case's garage-based ur-band the Nerves, who were awesome) to briefly become the Next Big Thing.

They weren't—their two Consumer Guide entries sketch the rise and very quick fall of an accessible, derivative band—but even by the standards of one-hit wonders, "My Sharona," is a hell of a hit.

Feiger wrote the two most famous Knack songs, which were pretty indefensible, lyrically, fueled as they were by adolescent sexual desire so intense as to make the subject into a passive receptacle of immature urges. Which just makes the pleasure of the singalong hooks that much guiltier, I guess. To wit, here's "Good Girls Don't":