GET
TY
F
ew burned as brightly yet
briefly as The Knack. And
few have had their image
so muddled by history.
Within a couple of years, as the 70s
became the 80s, the LA rockers went
from superstardom (including No.1
Billboard status, and jams with Bruce
Springsteen and Tom Petty) to fading
under the weight of exhaustion, sales
slumps and critical backlash.
The Knack’s whole look and vibe
stemmed largely from pop and R&B
stars of the 60s, with
accusations of
ripping off The
Beatles (combined
with suggestions of
sexism and too
much teenage girl
focus in their
lyrics) leading to
a campaign against
them – named
‘Knuke The Knack’
by West Coast artist Hugh Brown.
But the decade often readily
associated with the band today is the
80s. And in a further twist, their only
album that had any real impact,
debut Get The Knack, actually came
out in 1979. They’re the 70s band
inspired by the 60s, who somehow
ended up in the 80s bracket.
Well, we say ‘album’, but it was
really all about one song – one of
the pop-rock earworms of the
century: My Sharona. And it’sprobably thanks to this song, in all its
gleaming, fierce yet bouffanted glory,
that they’ve retained that 80s ‘one-hit
wonder ’ tag.
The rest of it wasn’t exactly crap,
even if some of it would prove
contentious. Let Me Out fizzled with
The Who-meets-Cheap Trick joie de
vivre, while their cover of rockabilly
number Heartbeat (originally
consigned to Buddy Holly) was all
sunshiney rock’n’roll. And who
knows, with a slightly different
balance of look,
lyrics and luck
(a balance that
My Sharona
successfully struck),
tracks like Good Girls
Don’t might have
come across as
bouncy, hooky
anthems of youthful
angst, rather than
as the musings of
a bunch of pervy blokes.
Ultimately, however, The Knack
fell into the cracks between the
decades. Built by the 70s and
signalling the start of the 80s, they
ended up as heroes of neither. By
1982 The Knack had imploded,
dispersing to pursue individual
music careers, and reuniting a few
years later. They remained active
with varying line-ups until 2010,
when singer/guitarist Doug Fieger
died of cancer.THE KNACK
Words: Polly GlassGET THE KNACK
Aerosmith
NIGHT IN THE RUTS
The most wide-reaching, cross-
generational picture of Aerosmith tends
to stem from their 80s records – and
onwards, obviously. It was the 80s,
after all, that brought the immortal
likes of Dude Looks Like A Lady, Rag
Doll and Janie’s Got A Gun. Plus the fact that their sartorial
flamboyance and propensity for thinking big fitted in to the age of
MTV and filthy-rich record companies.
But that snarl, that resoundingly solid-rock foundation of theirs
was laid in the 70s. In 1979, Aeromith still had more in common with
the vintage likes of the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, and
Night In The Ruts was the glorious summation of that, and the rough
yet bold, hard-hitting platform that would ultimately propel them
into the next decade.Fleetwood Mac
Tusk
After they were blues-rock kids in the
60s with Peter Green, Fleetwood Mac
were 70s kids through and through,
before the chart-hitting Mirage
repositioned them in the following
decade. Anyone with a beloved, battered
old copy of Rumours – who has sung along to The Chain or Don’t Stop
for the hundredth time at many a wedding reception/karaoke night/
similar – knows that well.
Tusk was their exquisite 70s swansong, their farewell to the
decade that essentially made them. Not a commercial hit, but more
angular than Rumours and infused with jerky post-punky hints in
places (e.g. The Ledge, Not That Funny), sweet Americana strains in
others (Over And Over) and whimsical avant-pop elsewhere (Brown
Eyes). The grit and punchiness at work, however, would ultimately
lead in to their successful, rockier, Tango In The Night-style 80s.Queen
Live Killers
Their show-stealing appearance at Live
Aid in 1985 (see p74) might be the most
famous example of Queen putting on
A Really Fucking Big Show (and arguably
the most famous Queen moment, full
stop) – a point the 2018 film Bohemian
Rhapsody reinforced for latter-day listeners – but it was with Live Killers
that this most theatrical of bands first found their big-stage legs.
Queen had already established their rock kudos several years
before, but 1979’s Live Killers – recorded during the Jazz tour –
cemented their arena-conquering capacity. And of course they had
an embarrassment of top-drawer material to draw from by this
point. Immortal big fish like We Will Rock You and Killer Queen sat
alongside the equally impactful likes of Death On Two Legs and the
searingly beautiful Love Of My Life.
Live Killers was a colossal, even ‘killer’, stepping stone to Queen’s
record-breaking, stadium-busting 1980s.Words: Polly GlassCELEBRATING
THEIR 40
th
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