The Knack-Get The Knack (1979)

 



Artist: The Knack

Title: Get The Knack

Label: SO-11948

Format: LP

Cat #: SO-11948

Year of Release: 1979

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1979 Winchester Pressing (Steve Hall lacquer cut version)

Sold Price: $3.49

Listed Condition: VG+/G+

Sell Date: 9/22/20

Discogs Last Sold: 8/13/20 $4.17

Low: $2.00

Median: $3.99

High: $12.80

Current low price: $1.10 G+/G+

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 116

Have/Want: 930/48

Where Sold: Tampa, FL

Time it took to sell: 3 years

Where and When Bought: mall store in Worcester, MA in fall 1979 new for $4.49

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A

Sad To See It Go? Yes

What made a balding late 20's power-pop cum sorta-new-wave-by-default the voice of sexually frustrated teenage males and the girls who loved them in 1979?  The star "girl," Sharona, doesn't seem to mind being "THE Sharona" decades later.  That hit was inescapable in the Summer of 1979, but the follow-up, "Good Girls Don't" best embodies the proto-feminist that is Doug Feiger.  Feiger paints a teenage world where the boys are angry and perpetually unfulfilled.  Even when the strategic goal of face sitting has happened in a quiet setting, there is something missing.  The ability to dominate completely yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  The American way that foreshadowed the Reagan era.  Everyone loves a bad boy rebel, even when they come with skinny ties.   Thus Feiger played that up and The Knack were dutifully promoted as the next coming of the Beatles.

But as a 9 year old, I was oblivious to all of that, except for the Black Capitol label logo that matched the Meet The Beatles! album passed down to me as a 3 year old.  I had started collecting top 5 Billboard singles over the summer and decided it would be cheaper just to collect Billboard number one albums, which that week happened to be Get The Knack.  I maintained this collection even retroactively through good records and bad until Lionel Ritchie's Can't Slow Down which I just couldn't do after the year long Thriller reprieve.  I even got the insufferable Chariots of Fire Soundtrack.  This blind collecting at least enabled me to get Led Zeppelin's In Through The Out Door without knowing anything about Led Zeppelin.

Get The Knack itself I still know cold and hadn't heard it start to finish since probably 1980 the latest.  I bought the follow up single "Baby Talks Dirty" which I thought was great at 10, but didn't commit to the second album.  Upon relistening, Get The Knack holds up as a straight up rock n roll record without alot of bullshit, unless you talk to Jello Biafra who parodied them mercilessly.  Feiger's world dominance was a flash in the pan and brain cancer, not "little girls" proved to be his ultimate downfall.  Still the singular minded worldview, even in the Buddy Holly cover, made for an excellent guitar based pop album that went ignored by the AOR world of Skynyrd and Seger.

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