| March 4, 2018 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Lyrics: Oh my little pretty one, pretty one Never gonna stop, give it up
Come a little closer huh, ah will ya huh? Never gonna stop, give it up [Bridge] When you gonna give it to me, give it to me Never gonna stop, give it up Oooooh, my Sharona Get It: You can pick up the original album—it’s really quite good—at Amazon for a nice price: More serious fans should pick up a copy of the 2011 remastered and expanded edition: Dances with Bass YouTube Channel:
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In the summer of 1979, Los Angeles quartet The Knack had the misfortune of being labeled “the new Beatles.” And while their star did shine like a supernova that year, like every band who has had the misfortune of being given such a lofty anointment, The Knack quickly passed into relative obscurity. The Knack joined the likes of Badfinger, The Bay City Rollers, and Oasis as bands who—while excellent (and successful) in their own right—couldn’t live up to such a lofty mantle. In the rarefied air occupied by George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and John Lennon, there can only one. For that glorious summer, however, The Knack could do no wrong as the single, My Sharona, blistered its way up the charts; and it was quickly followed by a second single, Good Girls Don’t. Interestingly—though not surprisingly, I guess—both tracks featured copious amounts of teenage boy lust and bawdy bad girl lasciviousness. In fact, I distinctly remember being at Kmart with my mom and asking her to let me buy—with my own money and everything—a copy of the My Sharona 45. For reasons that passed my pimply, hormonal boy understanding at the time, she not only said, “No,” but she might have said some bad words as she directed me to return it to the record aisle and to wash my #%@!%#!% hands. Go figure.  The Knack formed in LA in 1977 while disco and punk were going toe-to-toe in the U.S. It was Gloria Gaynor vs. Syd Vicious in a best of three falls, and thank the gods, Gloria Gaynor wasn’t nearly as tough as she looked. After tearing up the LA bar scene for a couple of years, the band dropped Get the Knack in 1979, and it soared to the top of the charts on the strength of the first single, My Sharona, which was inspired by vocalist Doug Fieger’s mad obsession with Sharona Alperin who would later become his girlfriend. In fact, the single sleeve—the one my mom wouldn’t let me buy—featured Alperin posed in a pair of tight jeans and a revealing tank top. Interestingly, rumors are that in Japan, listeners thought the word “sharona” referred to a particular male body part. While Feiger and Alperin didn’t stay together, they remained lifelong friends until Feiger’s death in 2010. Today, Alperin is a real estate agent in LA. In August of 1979, The Knack dropped Good Girls Don’t, and it reached number 11 on the Billboard charts. Not surprisingly, the song’s lyrics were met with disdain from parents and religious groups. In fact, the radio version of the track changed the lyric, “And it’s a teenage sadness / Everyone has got to taste / An in-between age madness / That you know you can’t erase / Til she’s sitting on your face (and it hurts!)” to “When she puts you in your place.” Hoping to capitalize on its initial runaway success, the Knack dropped a follow-up album, …But the Little Girls Understand, in 1980, which went gold in the U.S. and Japan, and it hit platinum in Canada. The single, Baby Talks Dirty, hit the top 40 in the states, but it didn’t stay on the charts long. The follow-up single, Can’t Put a Price on Love, failed to crack the top 40. After taking a year off to recharge, the band released its third record, Round Trip, in 1981, but compared to their debut, it was a commercial flop. In the summer of 1982, The Knack split. During the late 1980s, the band reunited a time or two for specific shows, but it didn’t release a new album until 1990’s Serious Fun, which spawned the single, Rocket O’ Love. This track was a top 10 hit on U.S. album-oriented rock stations¹ and was the last time The Knack would see the charts. My Sharona had some new life breathed into it when the full version of the track (not the radio edit, which excised most of the blistering guitar solo) was featured prominently in the 1994 movie, Reality Bites. The movie exposed a new generation to this rock classic. In 1996, The Knack contributed a cover of Badfinger’s No Matter What to a tribute album, Come and Get It: A Tribute to Badfinger, and it released its final album, Serious Fun. The Knack toured through the late 1990s and into the 2000s. During a show in Las Vegas in 2006, Feiger became disoriented and struggled to remember lyrics to the band’s songs. After being examined, he learned that he had two brain tumors. He underwent surgery to have them removed and even returned to touring, but cancer eventually spread to his lungs, and he died in 2010. Drummer Bruce Gary became a producer and stage musician. He performed with a who’s who of artists, including Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Rod Stewart, and Sheryl Crow. Gary died of cancer in 2006. ¹ AOR (Album-Oriented Rock, is an industry classification for radio stations that focus on albums, rather than singles, from rock artists. Most rock stations today would be classified as AOR stations. Video: The radio version of My Sharona was edited to remove most of the blistering guitar solo that begins around the three-quarter mark of the song, which was a shame because it’s one of the most intense and hook-laden solos laid down in the late 1970s. Unfortunately, this version of track broke the three-minute pop song rule. Thankfully, when My Sharona was picked up for the 1994 Reality Bites soundtrack, the whole track was used, which exposed many listeners to the song as it was originally intended. Of course, the version we’re including here is the full-meal-deal version because we simply wouldn’t have it any other way. Just try to listen to this song in your car without driving too fast. We dare you. The full version is featured here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9VnjG3N4GU The Knack also scored a hit in 1979 with Good Girls Don’t. It’s almost as if these boys had coitus on their minds when they were penning this album. Strange.
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