RIP Doug Fieger

[fishhack2009]

Lead singer of The Knack. Passed away of cancer today. He was 57.

http://detnews.com/article/20100214/METRO/2140317/Knack-lead-singer-Doug-Fieger-dies-of-cancer

 

[Trey Beamon]

****abuncha cancer. RIP.

While "My Sharona" and "Good Girls Don't" were hits off the debut, the rest of the album wasn't bad either. Here's one of my favorites:

 

[fishhack2009]

****abuncha cancer. RIP.

While "My Sharona" and "Good Girls Don't" were hits off the debut, the rest of the album wasn't bad either. Here's one of my favorites:

I was 13 when that album came out. The Knack gets wrongly pegged as a one-hit wonder. I don't think "Good Girls Don't" was as big a hit as "My Sharona", but it was a hit nonetheless.

The other thing I remember about The Knack is that they were marketed as an American Beatles. That didn't work out so well, but they did catch lightning in a bottle with that debut.

 

[WolvEagle]

Bummer. The Detroit media had mentioned recently that he was very ill. His brother, Geoffrey, is the best-known attorney in Michigan.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Wow, so they are related. My Sharona is perhaps the best "one-hit wonder" song ever, and there was a Sharona the song was based on, and she apparently was never won over by Doug. R.I.P.

 

[Moderator1]

Great guitar riff, albeit a short one, in My Sharona.

Are we dismissing Good Girls Don't as a hit, making them a two-hit wonder?

 

[dooley_womack1]

Relatively minor follow-ups to monster hits do not count when considering a one-hit wonder. No song other than My Sharona will be mentioned in or near the lede of any Fieger obit.

 

[Moderator1]

Well, hell.
I'd put Good Girls Don't in the second graph.

 

[dooley_womack1]

It was the title track of a second album that was far less successful than the first. And the song was not a phenomenon the way My Sharona is. The working definition of "one-hit wonder" is not strictly tied to how many songs of a group made the Billboard chart.

 

[Moderator1]

Submit your figures - we're headed to arbitration!

You know more about music in your sleep than I do fully alert. But if you said The Knack to me, I'd reel off both songs. My guess is most would. A one-hit wonder? You can't name that second song unless you're related or something.

 

[BYH]

Submit your figures - we're headed to arbitration!

Don't you go making this about Felipe Lopez again.

 

[Moderator1]

Submit your figures - we're headed to arbitration!

Don't you go making this about Felipe Lopez again.

Well, there's one small difference.
Fieger wasn't an asshole!

 

[fishhack2009]

My basic rule is: If the average music fan can cite two songs by a group ... they're not a one-hit wonder.

Sniff 'N The Tears is a one-hit wonder.

 

[Moderator1]

Well, I'm an average fan - far from an advanced fan but not a know-nuthin.
I can't name ONE hit by Sniff 'N The Tears.
So they're a no-hit wonder.

 

[dooley_womack1]

I would hardly call Driver's Seat a hit.

 

[fishhack2009]

I would hardly call Driver's Seat a hit.

Reached No. 15 on the Hot 100 in 1979. I'd disagree, but okay.

 

[dooley_womack1]

On the Sniff N the Tears Hot 100?? Ian Gomm and Chuck Francour weep.

 

[Football_Bat]

The Knack had a third Top 40 hit, "Baby Talks Dirty," that grazed the bottom of Casey's countdown.

 

[fishhack2009]

On the Sniff N the Tears Hot 100?? Ian Gomm and Chuck Francour weep.

Actually, the Billboard Hot 100. Ian who? Chuck who?

 

[Huggy]

On the Sniff N the Tears Hot 100?? Ian Gomm and Chuck Francour weep.

Actually, the Billboard Hot 100. Ian who? Chuck who?

Moon Martin, The Vapours, Flash & The Pan and Carolyne Mas weep too. "Drivers Seat" is a great record BTW.

Anyway, I remember the whole "Nuke The Knack" venom in the music press after their debut. But Get The Knack is a power pop masterpiece that still sounds great 30 years later.

There was plenty of great stuff on there other than "My Sharona" and "Good Girls Don't": "Your Number Or Your Name", "Let Me Out", "Maybe Tonight", "Frustrated" and a cool cover of Buddy Holly's "Heartbeat".

Of course after that The Knack embodied that classic music biz axiom that you get your whole life to make your first album, six months to make the second one. ....But The Little Girls Understand was just warmed-over Get the Knack and justifiably bombed and was absolutely skewered by this review by Dave Marsh in Rolling Stone:

http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/theknack/albums/album/105362/review/5943082/but_the_little_girls_understand

Knack drummer Bruce Gary, who was great on their debut, died in 2006.