Getting The Knack (Documentary)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C Documentary: B-
Like it or not, My Sharona by The Knack marked the
beginning of New Wave and the end of Disco in a way many still enjoying Disco
may have been taken off over. Of
course, Disco never really went away and two years later in 1982, it would come
back with a vengeance disguised as something “more significant” in Michael
Jackson’s music industry killing Thriller album. One of the reasons he had that chance is
because so many of the acts from 1980 like The Knack and others who were hot,
all found themselves in sudden decline.
Getting The Knack is a surprisingly good documentary from
Passport (using the actual band’s songs for a change) that shows their quick
rise and spectacular fall.
My Sharona was a Pop chart topper for six
weeks, yet the band would only have a couple more Top 40 hits and never see the
Top Ten again. Their album Get The
Knack (the title of which this DVD capitalizes on) went multi-platinum
(that’s millions sold) and topped the albums chart for nearly as long. What happened? For one thing, they could not come up with anything as memorable,
then lead singer and writer of their megahit Doug Fieger became too deeply
involved with drugs and his ego went soaring as a result. The band’s refusal to do interviews and
press caused the press to turn against them, then when Fieger talked about his
next megahits and how they’d need him when they topped the charts, their fate
was sealed.
It probably did not help that Capitol Records, the label
that finally picked them up after they and all the others kept passing on them
started comparing their immediate charting to The Beatles. That is never a good idea, especially now. Their follow-up album But The Little Girls
Understand barely sold over a half-million (Gold status since the mid
1970s) and their sales since have been dead.
As this documentary tells us, they band stayed together longer than one
might think, even reuniting to little commercial success. This show marks 25 years later and the band
is trying another comeback. I will not
hold my breath.
The full frame video is a culmination of new interviews on
tape and old footage on film, plus various stills throughout. That is varied as expected for such a program,
but is not bad for its age, but there are detail limits and quality varies as
usual. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is
sadly lacking any real Pro Logic-type surrounds, but it at least has their few
hits and is clear for what it is. The
extras are more than usual for Passport as well, with many live versions of
their hits, plus some interview pieces.
The best pieces are the story on how Ric Ocasek of The Cars was quickly
sick of the band, a new Music Video edit without footage from the classic videotaped
clip and a demo of My Sharona worth hearing.
Though no discussed here, when it came time My Sharona
to be licensed to a feature film, the label made the big mistake of choosing Reality
Bites over the far superior and more profitable Quentin Tarantino classic Pulp
Fiction back in 1992. That also
hindered any hopes of a comeback. The
question now is, what could they possibly have to say or offer? We’ll see.
- Nicholas Sheffo
