Joe “Boy With The Green Eyes” Fernbacher, Creem, 5/80
“I’m smiling.”
The questions that hang on the whine-stained lips of both critics and consumers alike are simply these: are the Knack the pop guano so many claim them to be? Are they just another pop band leading ordinary pop star lives? Are they the true hollow men (you know, all that form without motion, the shapes without color, rhythm without movement jazz--the standard T.S. Eliot rap) showing, in a grandiose manner, all those nasty little spaces that pop music allows itself to inhabit when indulging in all of its predetermined fantasies? Or are the Knack just plain old grub-street boys grunting out cruel romanticisms for a buying public that sways the hype breeze like so much wheat in a windstorm? Or are they really as good as they claim to be? A lot of questions for just a few whine-stained lips, eh?
“I’m smirking.”
The first Knack album was, despite all the publicity and controversy, a solid exercise in popology. Its glassine energy was strengthened by subterrestrial humor that made it a lot better than it should have been. Songs like “Siamese Twins (The Monkey In Me)” and “Good Girls Don’t” had a teething edge that turned what would have been a pop peccadillo into a pop harangue. “My Sharona,” with one massive hook that clogged the air pores for so long that everyone liked it--a Pavlovian response if ever there was one. A Pavlovian response carefully planned and executed by the psycho-technicians in the Capitol Tower control room created in much the same way that the Monkees and even the Beatles were. And that’s why everyone began to hate them: their talent was so obviously marginal, but their management was certainly not. Punk music was scaring everyone and pop music never scared anyone, so it was natural for pop to become the next big thing. The Knack were chosen, shown the promised land and forced to wander the desert of the Top Forty. They liked it.
“I am laughing.”
They’ve let the initial brouhaha die down before releasing this, their second album. ...But The Little Girls Understand is a confusing malmsey of contusive pop sluken and cynicism. The songs are well-written, sneering and often annoyingly good. “Baby Talks Dirty,” “How Can Love Hurt So Much” and “Can’t Put a Price on Love” all read like an instructional manual on the sufferance of teenage love, teenage confusion, teenage guilt. The team of Fieger and Averre has a rapscallion approach to their rocking, and it lends itself nicely to the pop idiom. Their songs are well-structured, well-timed, tremulous ballads usually lost in the viscidity of the Knack “sound.” The thumpa-thumpa of the drums, way overproduced, and the almost destructive insistence on shoving the rhythm guitar right through the listener’s gut--that’s the Knack’s “sound.” It is boring beyond all reasonable belief.
“I am laughing louder.”
Musically speaking, this album is an incredulous hodgepodge of stolen riffs and stolen production values. So blatant are the lifted licks that they go beyond the realm of simply paying homage to those who have influenced them and leap into the calloused arena of the rip-off. They simply steal, often note for note, from songs by the Who, Gene Pitney, the Stones (one song sounds so much like “Beast Of Burden” that it’s almost better than the original), and Phil Spector’s often-imitated wall of sound. There are more, but why list them? If you use this album for a parlor game--you know, sit around and pick the song they stole that riff from--it would probably be more entertaining than this entire album.
“I’m beginning to choke.”
So if you’re schizophrenic, maybe, just maybe, you’ll get a giggle out of this record. On the one hand, good basic songwriting and songs, and on the other hand, outrageous production and old and used music. Personally, I’d rather watch Robby Benson bite his fingernails and say “Wow.” The little girls might understand, but who the hell cares? I don’t. By the way, the answers to the opening questions are: Yes, yes, yes, yes and no.
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