#50
Reviewed by Eli Sitt
February 15 1980
The Knack
…But the Little Girls Understand
Allen’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Eli’s Rating: 2 out of 5
Allen’s Highlights:
Baby Talks Dirty
I Want Ya
Hold On Tight and Don’t Let Go
Requisite cover: The Kinks’ “The Hard Way” – not bad, I guess?
By Eli Sitt
The first and only album I ever reviewed was U2’s Joshua Tree. I wrote the review after a listen or two to the record and stashed it away, never read it to anyone. It’s somewhere in an old notebook. If this quarantine lasts another couple of months, I promise, I’ll dig it up and share it.
This is the second album I’ve ever reviewed, and boy is it a stinker. I have a few metrics for albums: Would I have bought it at the time it was released and liked it?
Would I like it today 42 years after its release?
And lastly: If I were stranded on a desert island and had only one album to listen to for a few months, would this record push me to kill myself or give me a reason to live?
I was 14 when The Knack burst onto the pop world in 1979. “My Sharona” was on the radio in Boston constantly. My neighbors were Observant/Orthodox Jews, the kids’ names were Eeyore, Panella and…Sharona. The tune and The Knack will always have a special place in my heart. They were the first Pop/Rock/New Wave band to push Disco out of my life. I will never forget that my classmate told me “Eli, Disco is dead.” The Knack opened the door for all the new wave groups I would follow for the next ten-twenty years. I think Gary Numan’s “Cars” was the second tune.
This album “…But the Little Girls Understand” was the follow up to the smash success “Get the Knack” which I owned and listened to a lot. Not sure what was on my radar when this album came out, I do know that I didn’t buy it. I do not recognize or remember any of these tunes. I am listening to if for the first time. It’s not good. It sounds like someone went into a lab and grabbed ingredients off the shelf, mixed them up and poured them onto the vinyl acetate. I’m not going to analyze the lyrics, I don’t want to remember any of them, keep my mind less spoiled.
Highlights
Meh
I guess if you listen to the record a few times through, some of the tunes have catchy choruses and song structures that could grow on you, but I’d rather avoid that if possible.
Opening track “Baby Talks Dirty” is obviously a cover of “My Sharona” gone bad.
“I Want Ya” rips off three or four tunes at once, give them credit, it’s a mash up of so many 70’s power pop rock songs.
Discovery:
“The Feeling I Get” knocks off “And He Kissed me” by the Crystals. I can’t believe they weren’t sued for this…
I’ll score it a 2/5
1 for having decent tunes that could grow on me if I were stuck on that island. They rip off so many different bands and songs that I would at least get third- or fourth-hand enjoyment hearing them.
1 for having the balls to go into the studio after the smash success of their debut album
-3 because, if I remember correctly, they were hyped as the next Beatles. I would not have liked it when it was released, and I will never spend another minute listening to this. I will delete it from my Spotify listening history.
https://open.spotify.com/album/5DexUThrdVLHBdGhFgkl4H?si=BvEH4yzfQq2IxNMUlbDrWQ
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