In the summer of 1979 I was between my sophomore and junior years in college, and I was so anxious to start a career in journalism that I volunteered to spend it working for a small weekly newspaper in Peoria, Ill. called the Penny Press, which in turn meant living with my surprisingly crotchety (although now much missed) grandparents there. It didn't just mean leaving my friends back East, but it meant leaving the music I'd fallen in love with during those years, New Wave/punk rock, in order to work in the land of REO Speedwagon and Styx.
Sure, I had a few LP's that I tried playing on my grandparents' 1950s-ish "hi-fi," but most of the time I was stuck with some really bad tunes on the radio -- until a song came along that was too big for even the lame stations in Peoria to ignore. It was "My Sharona" by the Knack -- hook-laden, raunchy, with that memorable guitar line and killer solo in the middle. I could listen to that song over and over, and -- as it was No. 1 on the Billboard charts for six weeks -- I did exactly that. And before I knew it, I had survived the great summer of high gas prices and malaise.
The Knack didn't fare so well after that -- critics thought they were either too smutty or too contrived, but I think it was just impossible for them to ever top the perfect summer song of the late 1970s. I read a couple of years ago that lead singer and songwriter Doug Fieger was battling cancer; he finally succumbed this weekend at age 57. It's sad, but whenever I think of what it was like to be 20 years old, I will remember Fieger, and four minutes and three seconds of rock 'n' roll salvation.
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While My Sharona may have been the most popular tune, that first album was full of solid pop tunes. "Good Girls Don't" tops my list, for catchiness and raunch (the album version, not the cleaned up MTV version with "puts you in your place" instead of "sitting on your....")— enabler1- Batty is truly a ADHD-addled idiot without any ability to rationally discuss anything like an adult without lowering himself to his ilk's gutter level. Other than that, he seems like an OK pod.— enabler1
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- Yo batty, what does Johnny Weir's fur fetish have to do with 1979 rock and roll? You need to get over your Will Bunch fetish...— Yersinia Pestis
It's really not "My Sharona". It's 54% My Sharona, 38% the Federal Government's Sharona, and 8% the Sharona of the Commonwealth.— Mr. Smith- Comment removed.
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- "Good Girls Don't" figured in that story I tried to tell last summer. I didn't bother putting "My Sharona" on the Ipod. The "New Wave" wasn't as radical as its fans insisted. In fact, they were often bigger hypocrites than the "Mainstream" musicians they mocked. I remember one story Elvis Costello fans used to tell about him mocking Billy Joel, or the time Derek McManus (his real name) threw a fit on SNL about not being allowed to play "Radio Radio". Turned out the New Wave fans were as snobby and pretentious as the music they were sick of. In fact, if you were to compare them side by side, you would have a hard time finding big difference between new wave music and music from the "establishment" in the early 80'2. Except the new wavers were the ones in suits.— SteveMG
- The Cars- "The Cars" -first album I believe 1978- one of the best ever.— Manny Trillo
- Steve, I'm not sure if I get the point. Elvis C. (whose real name is Declan, not Derek) would be the first to tell you he was an immature jerk back then...I think he's grown up a lot. New Wave had good people and bad people, just like anything else in the world. But as a form of music, it was a huge breath of fresh air from the insipid corporate rock of the 1970s (I was there!)— will
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Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
E-mail Will by clicking here.
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