However, the band's rise to the top of the charts also precipitated a backlash. Follow-up single " Good Girls Don't" peaked at No. 1 hit in the US, and became the number-one song of 1979. The lead single, " My Sharona", was a No. The band's debut album, Get the Knack, was one of the year's best-selling albums, holding the number one spot on Billboard magazine's album chart for five consecutive weeks and selling two million copies in the United States. A&R executives Bruce Garfield and Bruce Ravid are credited with signing the band. The band was pursued by ten record labels, but decided on Capitol Records at the time, the Knack was given the largest signing sum in the label's history. Within months of their live debut, popular club gigs on the Sunset Strip, as well as guest jams with musicians such as Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and Ray Manzarek, led to the band being the subject of a record label bidding war. Some of these songs later made up the band's debut album Get the Knack, and included " Good Girls Don't".
#The knack discography series#
In the meantime, Fieger had been doubling on bass on a series of demos that the group had shopped to several record labels, all of which were rejected. Niles was the last to join, a week before the band's first show in June 1978.
Fieger had also known Bruce Gary (drums) for years before forming the Knack in 1978 with Prescott Niles (bass). Shortly after arriving in L.A., Fieger met Berton Averre (lead guitar, backing vocals and keyboards), and the two started a songwriting partnership. As a result, Fieger made the decision to move to Los Angeles and start another band. Although Sky had received a modest amount of acclaim, including being produced by Rolling Stones producer Jimmy Miller, the band broke up without having any chart success. The brother of attorney Geoffrey Fieger (later known for representing Jack Kevorkian in a series of assisted suicide cases) Fieger had previously played in an eclectic rock band called Sky as well as the Sunset Bombers. Singer Doug Fieger was a native of Oak Park, Michigan, a northern suburb of Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in the 9 Mile/Greenfield area. 1.4 Return of the Knack and final album (1986–2010).Fieger, however, died in 2010 after battling lung and heart cancer. Still, the bandmembers hoped that a whole new generation of music fans would get the Knack with the release of 2001's Normal as the Next Guy, an album that found the group at its best when discarding old formulas. Bruce Gary temporarily returned to the fold, but by the time the Knack released their second "reunion" album, Zoom, during the summer of 1998, the drum stool had been filled by Terry Bozzio (formerly of Missing Persons and Frank Zappa's band). The appearance of "My Sharona" on soundtracks and compilations caused the Knack to be thrown in the midst of a revival of sorts, reuniting and playing the occasional show in L.A. Due to their continuing underground popularity, the Knack resurfaced almost a decade later (minus Bruce Gary) and recorded the abysmal Serious Fun before hiding out once again to lick their wounds. Their third album, Round Trip, was adventurous and daring and received favorable reviews, but the band decided to split up soon after the album was released. The Knack then began a quick spiral downward that they were never to recover from. But the Little Girls Understand, less than a year after the debut, the backlash had already begun ("Knuke the Knack"). Their refusal to do interviews turned critics against them, and by the time they released their second album. The Knack's image, or lack thereof, was often unfavorably compared to the Beatles, but their music relied on the rough punchiness of the Kinks and the Who rather than the Fab Four. With its leadoff single, "My Sharona," the Knack climbed both the album and singles charts (eventually selling millions of copies around the globe), gained wide commercial acceptance, and regenerated the power pop scene that had laid dormant for half a decade.
Signing with Capitol after a feeding frenzy of label offers, the Knack released their debut, Get the Knack, in 1979. Forming in Los Angeles in the late '70s, the Knack (Doug Fieger, vocals/guitar Berton Averre, lead guitar Prescott Niles, bass and Bruce Gary, drums) were neither punk nor rock, but pure simple pop, standing out among the musical dross that littered the Sunset Strip.
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