Is The Knack a One Hit Wonder?

| July 10, 2013

Over musket fire and some sort of 175 proof “Apple Pie” stuff this weekend, BrownNeckGaitor and I started arguing about whether The Knack was a one-hit wonder. I contend that My Sharona is all they have. In fact, I would say that they were the Chumbawumba of their time. As BNG returned small arms fire and commented on the “supple buttocks” of the soldier in front of him, he took grave issue with my characterization. So, let’s settle this like real men that don’t have a Thunderdome available to them. A TAH Poll off.

First, he contends this is their better song:

I put it to you, Greg – isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we’re not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!

Sorry, got lost there, ok, vote:

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Category: Politics

94 Comments
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BNG

I never said it was BETTER, I did say that it was a hit which would make two (two?) vice the one hit that a one hit wonder is allotted.

Next house I buy in LA, I am buying throught Sherona Alperin, just saying.

http://www.mysharona.com/experience.php

S6R

It did chart to #11 in the US, although I have no recollection of it altogether. BNG is right on a technicality, but given that their website automatically plays “My Sharona” when you log on, they know where their bread is buttered.

The important thing to remember is that the Apple Pie moonshine is unbe-effin-lievable.

ChipNASA

TSO,
Don and Mike……
I miss them.

BNG

Agreed, Chip.

NHSparky

If you have to use Teh Wiki or Google to find any more than one…nuff said.

Hondo

Ah, yes, The Knack – that poor late-1970s imitation/reincarnation of Tommy James and the Shondells. The only thing missing was talent and staying-power.

By the way, TSO: it’s “Chumbawamba”. (smile)

BNG

Well, I named this song while there was a glut of small arms fire and supple buttocks but no interwebs.

But then I am an idiot savant in music.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

Two albums one platinum, one gold….means more than one hit wonder. Longevity on first go round less than 3 years equals no long term relevance….

verdict better than one hit wonder, but not by much….good potential zero execution…another footnote band from the late 70s early 80s….

nothing follows

Twist

You guys make me feel so young 🙂

ChipNASA
Hondo

ChipNASA: Remember that? Fella, I remember seeing the first episode. I was also lucky enough to be stationed near the 8055th’s old compound (the 8055th was the unit the book’s author was assigned to during the Korean War), and to run by it a few times. It was just a short distance from where I was stationed near Uijongbu. It had been turned over to the ROKA by that time, so visiting the compound was a “no go”.

Green Thumb

Its legit.

JBS

I’ve been alive quite a while and I have to say the only song I know of by The Knack is My Sharona. Weird that I have never heard Good Girls Don’t. Even weirder is that I have heard TubThumping but have no idea who Chumbawamba is.

David

heck with the TV show… odd double bill of Patton and M*A*S*H at the drive-in… not a particularly successful date, I saw both movies.

streetsweeper

There are bands I never listened to, this one falls in that group. Heh.

LebbenB

I disagree with the Tommy James comparision. The Knack was more of a power-pop group like The Sweet versus psychedelic pop. If it weren’t for the Knack, the Romantics, et al wouldn’t have been possible.

And I prefer “Good Girls Don’t” to “My Sharona.” It’s got a better riff. That said, the hook in My Sharona cannot be denied.

martinjmpr

I remember both but “Good Girls Don’t” was simply riding the coat tails of the totally over-rated “My Sharona.”

Being in high school in the late 70’s I remember hating The Knack with a white hot passion. Their next big album after “My Sharona” was called “But the little girls understand” which I believe came from a lyric by Jim Morrison (“Back Door Man”), a musician who is far more talented than the Knack will ever be, despite the slight handicap of having been dead for 40 years.

martinjmpr

@14: JBS, maybe you’re remembering the Homer Simpson version of Tubthumping:

I drink a whiskey drink
I drink a vodka drink
And when I have to pee
I use the kitchen sink

I still can’t get that out of my head! 😀

PintoNag

I HATE My Sharona, never mind the geeky, sunken-chested mop- heads who sang it.

Trent

Ah, The Knack. The only thing they did besides having My Sharona and today’s featured song was legitimize ‘New Wave’ music. And this came out right after I graduated High School. #Feelingolderthandirt

Eggs

And all this time I thought it was Rick Springfield that sang Good Girls Don’t.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

Hey Twist, the first album I bought with my paper route money at age 12 was Cream’s Disraeli Gears…I bought it in 1970, it had debuted in November 1967 and my aunt who stayed with us during her high school years (she’s only 5 years older than I am) played it over and over so much so that when it wore out I replaced it….so feel young all day friend….

Hondo

Psychedelic pop? Tommy James? Please.

Like the 1910 Fruitgum Company, the Archies, and the Grassroots, Tommy James early stuff was pure “bubble gum” and/or “sunshine”. They turned psychedelic (sort of) with “Crimson and Clover” – and found out fairly soon they just couldn’t hang with the real psychedelic pop/rock bands.

You want real psychedelic, try the Jefferson Airplane, Hendrix, Cream, early Pink Floyd, Strawberry Alarm Clock, later Donovan, the Grateful Dead, the Byrds, or the Yardbirds. Or you could just listen to Sgt Peppers for probably the most listenable example.

The Knack was IMO merely early Tommy James updated with a late-70s sound. You want power from that era, talk Deep Purple, the Who, Zepplin, the Stones, or Kiss.

As always, YMMV. (smile)

Trent

I’ll take ‘glam’ rock over psychedelic any day. Slade, Sweet, Gary Glitter and the New York Dolls. You can say the Dolls were pre-cursors to punk (which I loved and still do) but they were glam first.

Jonn Lilyea

I remember Tommy James’ “Crystal Blue Persuasion” but only because my father forbade playing it because he thought it was about giving chicks drugs so we could have sex with them. What a square, man!

JBS

@24 Hondo…I think you might have talked about Canned Heat before. Anytime you use a flute thingy, I think that would be psychedelic. And speaking of flute, in this video he actually turns in around to blow in the proper end of the thingy, in the video beginning, after the first few bars.

Hondo

Jonn, if one of the song’s authors is to be believed (James) it’s actually based on the Bible – either Ezekiel or Revelations, depending on which account you want to believe.

Hondo

JBS: not sure I’d put Canned Heat in the psychedelic category – I always thought they were more blues-influenced. And any group that has a song called “Going Up the Country” as their biggest hit, well, . . . . (smile)

Now, if you want to put them in the “psychedelic user” category, well, they were big in the 1960s and did play Woodstock. I’d guess that’s applicable. (smile)

Dave in St. Louis

Personally, I think the #11 status of Good Girls Don’t eliminates The Knack from consideration as a OHW. However, if you go with the “overshadows” criteria, it fits.

Amusingly, the at least one of the charts listed on the Wikipedia page for OHW lists Survivor as a OHW.

CavScoutCoastie

Personally I prefer the Weird Al Yankovic version: My Bologna.

LebbenB

Purple and Led Zep were Metal. The Stones were blues-rock. Kiss was/is glam Metal. Middle-era Who (from “Who’s Next to “Who Are You”) I will agree fits the power pop sub-genre.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

TSO you could use Blue Cheer’s cover of Summer Time Blues for a nice example of some decent original metal sound….some folks consider that cover the first example of a heavy metal style of sound…interesting back story as well….

Joe Williams

Power blues OHW is the Blue Cheer. Anyone their version of Summertime Blues and their hook used in it? Joe

Hondo

LebbenB: arguable either way. The categories blend and overlap, and opinions vary.

Hondo

TSO: damn, you’re not gonna use Zappa’s “Bobby Brown” to honor those two, are you? Apropos as hell IMO, but if you do don’t forget the prominent “NSFW” warning. (smile)

Sparks

@24 I agree. The Knack was bubblegum pop like the Archies.

Ex-PH2

“My Sharona”??? If that came on the radio, I had to find another station quickly.

Sorry, TSO, they simply could not outdo the Statler Brothers and “Flowers On the Wall” for songs that stick in my head.

Of course, a lot of silly things stick in my head that I’d like to get rid of….

Sparks

@39 Thanks for that. Now that song will be stuck in my head all day. 😀

David

Miscellaneous: Byrds were never psychodelic. Canned Heat’s biggest was “One The Road Again”, no relation to Willie Nelson’s. Lots of non-psychodelic folks played Woodstock – joni Mitchell, Johnny Winter, Taj Mahal as examples. Cream and Yardbirds were British Blues a la John Mayall. Later Donovan? Hondo’s dead on with Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and some of the others… some of that crap is totally unlistenable now. Try objectively listening to Big Brother and the Holding Company for a great example of a lead guitarist who absolutely sucks. And Tommy James, while definitely a pop artist, DID manage to get banned in many cities for “I Think We’re Alone Now”. (By the way, Blue Cheer’s “Summertime Blues” is a cover – think the original is Carl Perkins or someone similar. GREAT cover, though.)

Hondo

CavScoutCoastie: personally, I think Cheech Marin’s is the “definitive” version:

Hondo

David: Eddie Cochran, actually.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZZD8ckwLJA

But the Byrds did indeed do some psychedelic pop. In fact, the Byrds’ “Eight Miles High” is generally regarded as a classic example of early psychedelic pop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH6UnvSlahc

Ditto Cream – the best example of which is IMO “White Room”.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

Hey I said Blue Cheer’s version was a cover in post 34….

Hondo, I think Cream’s Tales of Brave Ullysses elicits that late’60s psychedelic feel for me

David

Hondo and VOV=- absolutely correct, knew it was in the same group – Perkins was “Blue Suede Shoes”.
Some points are hard to quantify – what ‘feels ‘psychodelic’ to some may not to others depending on which you remember – for instance whether your strongest Dead memories would be of Aoxoamoxoa or Workingman’s Dead – HUGE difference. I freely concede your points, with the observation “godDAMN some of you are old”. Wonder what your music collections look like – and willing to bet somebody besides me is still schlepping around things like vinyl and cassettes.

Hondo

VOV: agreed. Also Swalbr.

crucible

Good Girls is a legit song-maybe not very good, but legit nonetheless. Definitely pop, but even the pop of that age required some level of talent, today, not so much (not a soul will hear a Justin Beiber song played 30 years form now, but I’ll bet they’ll be an oldies station that still plays My Sharona on occasion.

#2 I totally got that TSO-lol! (I miss hearing it and other like it; DC radio used to have some funny. Can’t you hear ole Linda MccCrtney now singing the background of Hey Jude? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoH9zP_n_g0)

Hondo

David: well, “old” is relative. And I’m not ready for the only known alternative. (smile)

Yeah, still have some vinyl. Even have a copy of Sgt Peppers on Capitol somewhere if it hasn’t been destroyed in a move (also have that one on CD now).

Eventually I’ll probably convert most of it to CD – prefer that to some form of compressed digital, even if the distortion is low enough on most to be negligible. Plus that gives me the option to rip to digital as MP3 or WMA for portable use. (smile)

Eggs

I was bombarded by My Sharona and What a Fool Believes every 15 minutes during Galley Week @ Cape May, the sound system was permanently tuned to the Wildwood FM station. Upon graduation I bought a boom box and a couple of Van Halen cassettes to help cleanse my brain.

Veritas Omnia Vincit

She walks like a bearded rainbow…..

of course this lyric has always stuck in my mind especially after my first marriage:

She’s a witch of trouble in electric blue, in her own mad mind she’s in love with you…with you….what you gonna do? Strange brew kill what’s inside of you…

I guess the whole Disraeli gears album creates the psychedelic feel…you guys are bringing solid great memories back today, thank you for that….

I never cease to be amazed how music quickly flashes you back to another time and place for good or ill, but the music implants those memories nonetheless….