Can’t Put A Price On The Knack: Rest In Peace, Doug Fieger

Last week, power pop music lost a leg­end.  Doug Fieger was the lead singer, rhythm gui­tarist and vocal­ist for the Knack.  This group epit­o­mized the “skinny-tie” sound that dom­i­nated the new wave/early alter­na­tive musi­cal arena for a short while thanks to their mon­ster #1 chart smash “My Sharona” and its atten­dant hit album, Get The Knack.  The group fell from grace as quickly as it rose to promi­nence but still man­aged to cre­ate a short, sweet legacy of hook-laden tunes that con­tinue to charm those who can appre­ci­ate the magic of a well-constructed pop song.

Like most “overnight suc­cesses,” Doug Fieger walked a long road to reach his moment of instant glory.  He started play­ing in rock bands at the age of 11 in his native Michigan, grad­u­at­ing to the pros in a group called Sky (pro­duced by Jimmy Miller of Traffic and Rolling Stones fame) at the dawn of the 1970’s.  He sol­diered on in rel­a­tive anonymity until he cre­ated the Knack near the decade’s end with co-writer and friend Berton Averre.

And what this duo devised was mag­nif­i­cent.  At a time when punk and disco were bat­tling for the souls of the aver­age music lover, the Knack felt like a day­dream inspired by our col­lec­tive mem­o­ries of 1960’s beat-pop.  They took the instantly-accessible hooks and the judi­cious songcraft we loved in count­less Beatles, Who and Kinks oldies and added late-1970’s lev­els of energy, caus­tic wit and lusty lyrics.  The result­ing sound was clas­sic yet brac­ingly mod­ern, a dual­ity best embod­ied in “My Sharona”: this lust-ode to a teenage girl punched away at a bar­rage of hooks with sledge­ham­mer power but the arrange­ment had the laser-sharp pre­ci­sion of the best pop tunes.

The rest of Get The Knack proved they weren’t just a one-song won­der: each song deliv­ered the same mix­ture of energy, finesse and sheer love for pop music, with tunes like “Your Number Or Your Name” and the sur­pris­ingly del­i­cate bal­lad “Maybe Tonight” becom­ing endur­ing power-pop fan faves.  “Good Girls Don’t” made for an endear­ingly raunchy follow-up hit with its spot-on mar­riage of teenage-horniness lyrics and high-octane Merseybeat melod­i­cism.  Get The Knack ulti­mately spent five con­sec­u­tive weeks at #1 on the charts.  They had the pop music zeit­geist in the palm of their hand.

Sadly, their reign ended as quickly as it began.  In two years, the Knack would implode due to a vari­ety of fac­tors: their “no inter­views” pol­icy caused the music press to turn on them, Capitol Records’ heavy hyp­ing of the band led to a “Knuke The Knack” back­lash and ego and drug-fueled inter-band strife caused the group to implode shortly after releas­ing their third album.  The for­mer kings were reduced to instant punch­lines, never again to scale the plat­inum heights again.

But that wasn’t the end for the Knack.  They reunited in the late 1980’s, with Fieger con­tin­u­ing to lead the group.  To his credit, he never allowed bit­ter­ness or a sense of loss to cloud his love for music.  He con­tin­ued to devote his ener­gies to qual­ity song­writ­ing and sang each new song with the power and pas­sion that sold peo­ple on “My Sharona” so many years ago.  The Knack even man­aged a late-period gem with 1996’s under­rated Zoom album.

Six years ago, Fieger was diag­nosed with can­cer.  He han­dled the bad news with a grace­ful atti­tude, per­haps because he became used to stay­ing pos­i­tive in the face of adver­sity long ago.  In a inter­view con­ducted shortly before his pass­ing, Fieger said he’d led “ten great lives” and added “I don’t feel cheated in any way, shape or form.”  His star­dom might have faded long ago but he exited this world like a star, with all the grace and good cheer that defines a star’s per­sona.  Your Humble Reviewer hopes he can be that much of a class act when his time comes.

Luckily for us, Fieger’s star qual­ity will con­tinue to live on between the grooves of those clas­sic Knack record­ings.  Get The Knack remains a must-listen album for any­one inter­ested in power-pop as do Zoom and Round Trip (the classic-that-never-was of the Knack cat­a­log).  It is rec­om­mended that you jump around the room with youth­ful aban­don when you play them.  Somewhere in the great beyond, Doug Fieger will smile down on you.

Here’s a selec­tion of Schlockmania’s favorite Doug Fieger/Knack record­ings — if you’re into MP3’s, any and all are worth downloading: