Doug Fieger, lead singer of The Knack (who were actually touted as "the next Beatles"), is dead at age fifty-seven following his battle with lung and brain cancer, a death I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. To those of us of a certain age, "My Sharona" was permanently carved into our brains thanks to its complete and utter airplay ubiquity in 1979, and if you ask me that was a good thing because its success signaled the the long-awaited fall of disco. Can't you just hear him stuttering "Muh muh muh my Sharona" as you read this? Such is the power of pop music as heard during adolescence, now-middle-aged kiddies...Fieger is the guy whose head is most prominent on the cover of the band's debut album, "Get The Knack," and can be seen above on the LP held my the "My Sharona" single's model.
Rest well, Doug. "MY-YI-YI-YI-YI, WHOOOOO!!!"
7 comments:
>>"My Sharona" was permanently carved into our brains thanks to its complete and utter airplay ubiquity in 1979, and if you ask me that was a good thing because its success signaled the the long-awaited fall of disco.<<
Not that they'll get any credit whatsoever for that, since the "Nuke the Knack" mantra became just as prevalent as "Disco Sucks" by 1980 or so because of the nonstop airplay "My Sharona" got at the time.
Never got into The Knack, but I think later bands like The Romantics certainly benefitted from the kids who they targetted.
RWG ("Good Girls Don't" rocked, though :-)
Ma Ma Ma MYYYY Scu-rotum!!!!!
Is it true that My Sharona is a song about rape?
Mindless Kirby, your question is the first time I've ever heard of "My Sharona" possibly being about rape. After reading that, I hit Google and did a search; there are apparently those who think it "may" be about rape, but I don't see it. If you want to check out a song from near that period that absolutely is about rape and most people don't notice because they're too busy rocking to it and not paying mind to the lyrics, check out "Johnny Hit and Run Pauline" by X. Great song, very dire story about a serial rapist who waits at some L.A. bus depot for young female runaways to disembark, after which he injects them with a knockout drug, takes them back to his lair and rapes them over and over again. In the case of the Pauline in the title, the knockout dose was not properly administered, so it turns out that she's awake for the whole ordeal. It's horrible, but unless you know what's it's about going in, you'll never notice the words.
Aw, man!!! I was just listening to "Good Girls Don't" last night - one of my favorite entries on a nine-hour '80s mix I made for my iPod. (I know - how's that for a culture mash?) Sad.
I had been commenting, that same evening, about the irony of the Ramones album Too Tough to Die - an album from which a track or two also made it into that mix - when every Ramone on that album is dead now, save the drummer. Time and mortality make punchlines of us all!
What about "Four-F Club" by the Mentors? There's a happy pro-rape song if I ever heard one! "...next comes Phil... He brought the knock-out pills!"
Sheer poetry.
Article on the real Sharona. She is the woman on the cover of the single.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-sharona18-2010feb18,0,7513553.story
Post a Comment