Capitol 11948
Producer: Mike Chapman
Track listing: Let Me Out / Your Number or Your Name / Oh Tara / (She’s So) Selfish / Maybe Tonight / Good Girls Don’t / My Sharona / Heartbeat / Siamese Twins (The Monkey and Me) / Lucinda / That’s What the Little Girls Do / Frustrated
August 11, 1979
5 weeks
When Knack singer/guitarist Doug Fieger was finally inspired to write lyrics to one of guitarist Berton Averre’s two-year-old riffs, Averre was concerned.
As the two worked at Fieger’s apartment on the song, which would be titled “My Sharona” after a girl Fieger was lusting after, Averre questioned the move. “I started singing ‘My Sharona,’ and Burton said, ‘You can’t do that. You’re living with someone else.'” Yet Fieger couldn’t help himself. “After I met Sharona, I knew the feeling I had for her would translate well with the rhythm of that song.” Fieger was right. The song became the summer hit of 1979, eventually climbing to Number One, and Sharona became his new girlfriend.
The Knack was formed in May 1978. Fieger had recorded a few albums in the early ’70s for RCA as a member of a Detroit trio known as Sky, but the Knack would put him on the map. Performing at such Los Angeles clubs as the Troubadour, the Starwood, and the Whisky, the Knack became a top draw. By the end of 1978, more than a dozen record labels were interested in signing the band. The Knack chose Capitol, not because they were offering the most money, but because “they understood what we wanted to do,” says Fieger.
What Fieger wanted to do was write and record songs about “his remembered adolescence.” The band, which also included drummer Bruce Gary and bassist Prescott Niles, entered MCA-Whitney studios with producer Mike Chapman, known for his work with Blondie and Pat Benatar, on April 1, 1978. By April 13, the album was completed. “We would come in at noon and leave by 6 p.m.,” says Fieger. “‘Maybe Tonight’ we did in three takes, but every other song was in one or two takes. We were a live band, so we really didn’t have to fix anything.” The Knack spent only $17,000 making the album. “It actually cost about $13,000 and we spent about $4,000 on wine. Mike [Chapman] likes really good wine,” says Fieger.
The cover photo of Get the Knack was taken long before the band was signed to Capitol. “It was among the first 24 exposures we ever took as a band,” Fieger says. “But it captured what the band was about.” It also recalled Meet the Beatles. The back cover shot, in which the Knack struck a Beatlesque pose performing in front of a white backdrop, and the fact that the band was signed to Capitol, only reinforced the comparisons. “Capitol hadn’t had a huge act since the Beatles, so they brought it up a lot,” says Fieger. “The back cover was an intentional tongue-in-cheek joke. We never expected to sell more than 25,000 or 50,000 copies of the album and we thought the people that bought it would get the joke.”
Of course, Get the Knack went on to sell more than two million copies in America, and not everyone got the joke. Some were offended by the band’s use of Beatle-like imagery; others disliked their suggestive lyrics. Yet even a backlash couldn’t stop Get the Knack.
In its seventh week on the chart, Get the Knack hit Number One. When the band heard the news, they rushed over to the Capitol Records tower and danced on the desk of then-label president Don Zimmerman. “We told him if the album went to Number One we would do it, so we did,” says Fieger. Two weeks later “My Sharona” hit the summit of the Hot 100. The follow-up single, “Good Girls Don’t” peaked at number eleven.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of August 11, 1979
1. Get the Knack, The Knack
2. Bad Girls, Donna Summer
3. Breakfast in America, Supertramp
4. Candy-O, The Cars
5. Teddy, Teddy Pendergrass