Tuesday, October 04, 2005
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glisten: The Knack
The Knack - "Pop Is Dead"
Tasty coffin-calling from a pot calling the kettle corpulent that's neat enough to allow you to overlook the horrendous lyrics.
The Knack - "Harder On You"
A perfect tack-on to any breakup mix, 'Harder On You's bad-boy emo sneer has aged remarkably well; likely due to the preservative of a vicious and rock-out with-your-cock-out guitar line.
Prior to this week, I've never considered myself a Knack fan. The band's best known track, the ubiquitous 'My Sharona' brings to mind a slew of "wacky", pseudo-impromptu dance sequences from a dozen bad circa-'94 films and nothing else. Imagine my surprise when I popped the seal on this quarter-century old fake-live collection (don't be fooled by the cheers, this is a canned companion to the staged DVD of the same name) and found some of the most fun radio-friendly-unit-shifting that I'd heard in an age.
The Knack's appeal has always been that of a neutered Andrew WK or Skid Row more than a ballsier REM or The Cure; the naughty-boy nature of songs like 'Good Girls Don't' and 'Baby Talks Dirty' ain't hardly shocking and sounds even hokier now then it did then. Anyone expecting more than big ass rock drowning in a thick Velveeta sauce will likely be disappointed. Those of us who revel in the scent of vacuuum-packed plastic with our power-pop are in for a treat.
Buy The Knack's Live From the Rock'n'Roll Fun House from Amazon.
Dig the extremely odd review on this one, praising and not burying Paul Collin's Beat.
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Visit the official Knack site.
No sounds, but plenty of linkage.
Lead singer Doug Fieger's webpage is a bit dicier.
"Some would say his adventure started when Doug was three or four and saw his first movie."
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Listen to this "could-be-worse Toxic/Sharona mash.
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ILM is never shy about weighing in and this discussion from the always interesting and excitable Alex in NYC about the intrigues that an alternate Knack-less universe would hold.
Not such a A Wonderful Life.
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Labels: music
