The Knack
It this group hasn't exactly lost its touch, it has stretched itself thinly across the material on this disappointing follow-up to Get the Knack. Baby Talks Dirty is c-c-c-c-cloned My Sharona, and two other cuts sound like first-album outtakes—with the same feel, lyrical inanities and cutely kinetic pop-rock bounce. Borrowing heavily from its own successes is one thing, but this California quartet borrows from others' as well. The Hard Way (by the Kinks' Ray Davies) should remind any hardcore rocker of the 1965 Who classic I Can't Explain. Also on The Hard Way, lead singer Doug Fieger sings, "I gotta be cruel to be kind." Nice line; even nicer when Nick Lowe sang his Cruel to Be Kind last year (or when Shakespeare thought it up). The feeling we get from The Feeling I Get is very close to Then He Kissed Me by the Crystals—all Spectoresque, early-'60s ooh-wah sound. The LP's best cut is End of the Game, a tight, breakneck rocker with nifty slide guitar work by Berton Averre. It's the only original sound here.
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