The Beatles’ 10 Greatest Achievements

It’s become a cliché only because it’s true: The Beatles are the most popular, influential, and innovative group in the history of rock music. They have sold more than 2 billion albums worldwide and continue to influence an astonishing number of artists in different genres of music. To commemorate the 50^th anniversary of arrival in the United States, let’s go over some of their biggest triumphs.

1)      Creating new styles of music

The best evidence of The Beatles’ immense talent is their major role in creating new styles of music. It might be hard to believe that the same person invented soft rock and heavy metal, but Here, There and Everywhere and Helter Skelter, both written by Paul McCartney, are respective examples of the early stages of these two genres.

With their simple musical structures, romantic subject matter, and catchy guitar riffs, McCartney’s first collaborations with John Lennon (such as She Loves You, A Hard Day’s Night, and Day Tripper) inspired what would be known as “power pop” in the late 1970s. On the other hand, when they started to write more complex music and lyrics (as seen on the songs Eleanor Rigby, A Day in the Life, and Happiness is a Warm Gun), they kicked started progressive rock.

2)      Standing out as composers in addition to performers

Most of the music marketed to teenagers that came out before 1963 was written by professional songwriters. Lennon and McCartney (and later, George Harrison) changed this forever. After The Beatles, rock & rollers would only be considered legitimate artists if they wrote their own material.

3)      Forcing critics to see popular music as art 

With the release of the seminal Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967, The Beatles elevated rock music to a level of respectability that was impossible to imagine at the time. Many music critics still consider it the best rock record ever released, and its eclectic mix of psychedelic pop (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds), hard rock (Good Morning, Good Morning), music hall (When I’m Sixty-Four), raga (Within You Without You), and classical music (She’s Leaving Home) is extremely effective and totally unique.


4)      Making lyrics important in pop music 

Like most pop records of the day, The Beatles’ first hits spoke about romantic relationships in an innocent and almost infantile way. They matured between 1964 and 1965 and began to write more profound and sophisticated lyrics about taboo subjects like self-deprecation (I’m a Loser), romantic rejection (No Reply), despair stemming from extreme insecurity (Help!), romantic disappointment (I’m Looking Through You), and infidelity (Norwegian Wood).

5)      Defining the LP as a valuable artistic statement 

Standard industry practice before 1965 was that an LP consisted of one or two singles, a few cover songs, and a lot of filler. When The Beatles released Rubber Soul in December of that year, they presented the public with an album in which every song mattered. From that point forward, LPs needed thematic unity and had to establish their own aesthetic in order to be considered truly great. This served as a launching pad for more eye-opening innovations, including arguably the first ever concept album (the aforementioned Sgt. Pepper’s) and their self-titled double album, commonly referred to as “The White Album”.

6)      Inventing new recording techniques

Together with producer George Martin and engineers Geoff Emerick, Ken Townsend, and Norman Smith, they changed the sound of rock music by inventing ADT (automatic double tracking), feedback (on I Feel Fine), and backwards recording (on Rain).

7)      Revolutionizing fashion

The Beatles phenomenon transcends the music world; they had a remarkable impact on popular culture and even went on to become fashion pioneers. From the black suits and mop top haircuts of the “Beatlemania” days to Lennon’s trademark glasses and the colorful clothing of the “psychedelic years”, their style still has plenty of imitators. 

8)      Presenting the pop star as a cultural and social commentator 

In the Beatles’ early years, their manager Brian Epstein forbade them from making political statements in order to avoid offending the record-buying public. Eventually, they resented these limitations and spoke freely about religion, drugs, the Vietnam War, and other controversial subjects.

9)      Opening the American market to other British Groups

With their arrival on U.S. soil in February 1964, The Beatles set off “The British Invasion” and groups like The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Bee Gees, and The Kinks went on to sell millions of records. 

10)  Establishing the prototype for music videos 

In 1966, The Beatles were tired of appearing on television to promote their songs. They solved this problem by creating promotional videos for their singles Paperback Writer and Rain, which gave birth to modern music videos.

Dance, Drink, and Blasphemy

Written on June 30, 2013

The music in my car drowned out the sounds of the streets. I was headed to a strip club and blasted Fat Joe’s “That White” in my stereo to pump myself up. My assignment was to study the place for a piece I had to write about what goes on in an average strip joint. My friend K, who doesn’t need a loud environment to lose his inhibitions (he barely has any), was my wingman for the night.

Although we’re great friends, I like to make fun of the inconsistency between his beliefs and his actions. For as long as I’ve known him, he has overloaded my Facebook feed with multiple status updates about God, Jesus, The Almighty; you name it. I constantly ask myself how he can muster up the strength to go to church on Sunday, since his Saturdays usually end six or seven hours after midnight.

K interrupted this brief moment of introspection when he screamed, “I want a fuckin’ lapdance! How much do they cost? You think forty bucks is enough?”

Even though I planned to avoid the subject that night, some lines from the song I was listening to (“We all about that gun play, but still take time out to pray every Sunday”) reminded me how fun it is to debate people who embrace hedonism while simultaneously professing their faith in God.

“Dude, I thought you were supposed to be religious!” I said. “You have a rosary on your rearview mirror, you always write about God on Facebook, and here you are talking about strippers…”

Immediately, he said, “Yeah, but fuck it! I’m down for whatever!”

His response made me laugh and I decided to let it go. “This isn’t the right time to talk about this, anyway”, I thought.



K grew up with a Catholic mother who always stressed the importance of prayer and attending mass. She does not eat meat on Good Friday, considers the Pope to be the perfect human being, and made her kids thank Baby Jesus instead of Santa Clause for the gifts they got on Christmas. Like her, K also begins each day with a prayer.

“When I wake up every morning, I ask God to let me have a good day at work. When I close a sale, cool, ‘our father who art in Heaven’…I thank him.”

His words spiked my curiosity and I felt the need to question him.

“Wait, if God is responsible for your good days at work, is it also his fault when you have a bad day?”
“Of course not!” he screamed. “God always helps those that stay positive. If I have a bad day, it’s because he has another opportunity for me down the road.”

“Are you sure it’s not because you haven’t been following the Ten Commandments?” I asked with a mischievous smile.

“Look, I follow the Ten Commandments, a’ight? I believe in doing good. You know me; you know I’m cool with everybody. I don’t steal, I don’t kill, I go to mass…but that part about ‘not coveting thy neighbor’s wife…umm…” He said while laughing smugly yet playfully.

“What about your mom, though? What does she think about the way you live?”

“Oh, she’s cool with it. She just tells me to keep praying and believing in God, and that everything will be alright.”

This statement was very surprising. The priests from the Catholic school I attended in my teenage years insisted that praying was not enough; you had to apply all the teachings of Jesus and the Bible if you wanted to go to Heaven. They also taught me that the sixth commandment (“Thou shalt not commit adultery”) forbade sex outside of marriage, that lust is one of the seven deadly sins, and that being promiscuous is one of the worst things in the world.

K doesn’t care about any of this. I can’t remember having a conversation with him where he didn’t mention his latest sexual conquests with plenty of enthusiasm. He prefers to tell these stories while sipping a bottle of his favorite drink, Heineken.

Alcohol consumption is a controversial subject within Christianity. Some evangelical and Pentecostal groups completely abstain from drinking. Catholics are slightly more flexible, but they only allow wine during communion or at dinner; drinking for fun is strictly forbidden.

K thinks that drinking is essential in any social situation. Last week, he cancelled an appointment we had made with friends to go to a basketball game because he was, in his own words, “wild as fuck, drinking whiskey and Martinis with a girl I’ve been trying to fuck for five years.”

I got slightly angry when I read this text message after I had already left my house, so I called him up to express my frustration. As soon as he picked up the phone, he said, “Yo, Alex, this woman ignored me five years ago, and God put her in front of me on a totally random day to show her that I’m not the stupid wannabe-thug I used to be. God has blessed me!”

“Oh, absolutely!” I sarcastically replied. “You’re going straight to Heaven!”

“Of course I am! I’ve been pretty wild, but I always try to do good, you know what I mean? If you act in a good way, out of good faith, God puts good things in your way!”
In the end, he didn’t get the girl’s number and his team lost by two points. God works in mysterious ways.

Who are the sports heroes of Puerto Ricans?

Written on May 14, 2013



When I was growing up in the nineties, all the kids my age worshipped Michael Jordan. We begged our parents to buy us any and every product that he promoted, and whenever we touched a basketball, we screamed, “I’m Jordan!” All of us were familiar with José “Piculín” Ortíz (perhaps the greatest Puerto Rican basketball player of all-time), but we didn’t care about him. He was never on TV, he couldn’t dunk from the free throw line, and he didn’t make movies with Bugs Bunny.

We had also heard stories about Roberto Clemente. As one of the greatest players in the history of Major League Baseball and a proud Puerto Rican, he was revered throughout the island. Sadly, he died 15 years before we were born. As a result, we never had the chance to see him play, so he was irrelevant to our immediate reality.

A few months after Jordan retired, the Tournament of the Americas (now known as the FIBA Americas Championship) was held in San Juan. Although seeing NBA players in person was an exciting experience for an 11 year-old sports fan, the thing I enjoyed the most about the tournament was getting to know the Puerto Rican national basketball team. I could root for players from my own country for the first time in my life!



This experience inspired me to learn about Puerto Rican athletes. Even though most of my favorite sports stars are still U.S. Americans, I get more emotionally invested when the Puerto Rican national team is playing, as opposed to NBA or MLB teams. Watching my fellow countrymen defend the colors of our flag carries much more weight than watching foreigners represent cities that I am barely familiar with.

On March 15 this year, the Puerto Rican national baseball team faced the United States in an elimination game that would guarantee the victor one of the top four positions in the World Baseball Classic. Many sportswriters felt that beating the U.S. would represent the most important athletic achievement in Puerto Rico since Carlos Arroyo guided us to victory in the first game of the 2004 Olympics. Perhaps not incidentally, this game was also against the U.S. team, a star-studded roster that included former and future NBA MVP’s Allen Iverson, Tim Duncan, and LeBron James.

I called my grandfather before the game to discuss the implications of a Puerto Rican victory. Aside from being a huge sports fan, he was also an assemblyman for the New Progressive Party (the political party that advocates statehood for Puerto Rico), so I decided to tease him a little bit.

“Wait, why am I talking about this with you?” I said. “You want the U.S. to win!”

Although he knew I was joking, he still felt offended and told me that he had no idea what I was talking about.

I tried to explain that it was a contradiction to support statehood for Puerto Rico but still root for the home team, because if the statehood advocates’ dream ever materialized, we would lose all international representation and would have to compete with U.S. Americans for a spot on their team.

Before I could finish my point (one that I’m sure he had heard numerous times before), he interrupted me and said, “I am in favor of statehood, but I’m also a native Puerto Rican. How could I deny my roots and support the Americans? That would be political fanaticism.”

His answer spiked my interest in the matter, and I decided to find out what my pro-statehood friends thought about the game. I was particularly curious about my best friend Danny’s perspective. For as long as I’ve known him, he has been a proud admirer of the United States. When I asked where his loyalties lay, he responded without hesitation, “I always want the U.S. to win.”

“I understand, but they’re up against players from your own country!” I asked. “Do you really want your guys to lose?”

“Yup. I hardly know about the Puerto Rican players, but I like the Americans because they’re the ones I see on TV. Also, if you seek statehood, you love the U.S., so you’re supposed to support them by default. My ideology forces me to despise the fact that we are a colony, and I don’t like to think of Puerto Rico as something separate from the U.S.. I don’t care if this looks bad because I’m from another ‘country’. This is how a statehood supporter is supposed to think.”

His frankness surprised me, so I quickly wrote the question on my Facebook page to see if anyone else felt the same way. The response was unanimous – all my pro-statehood friends wanted Puerto Rico to win. Not only that, but they could not believe that their loyalty towards their homeland was being questioned. Despite admitting that they don’t follow the Professional Baseball League of Puerto Rico, they stressed that seeing the national team excel in the tournament made them feel very patriotic.



After the team secured a ticket to the championship game by beating the U.S. and two-time defending champion Japan, the leading newspaper in Puerto Rico (El Nuevo Día) published an article that compiled the reactions of various Puerto Rican public figures. Juan Dalmau, the 2012 gubernatorial candidate of the Puerto Rican Independence Party, said “the team managed to tap into the strong pride all Puerto Ricans feel about their national identity, regardless of political ideology.” This quote says it all. It might be a cliché, but the World Baseball Classic showed that sports can generate powerful emotions and unite the masses, and that nothing makes us happier as a people than seeing our compatriots exceed expectations and make noise on the international stage.

The Roots’ extraordinary career

Written on March 3, 2013



When some people hear the words “rap” or “hip hop”, they might conjure images of young blacks and Latinos with expensive cars and extravagant jewelry, dressed in sports attire, and surrounded by a bevy of scantily-clad women. Others might visualize parties in which only one man behind a pair of turntables is responsible for the event’s success. Few, if any, would think of a band of up to eight different musicians that play their own instruments.

The Roots, a legendary alternative rap group from Philadelphia, have established an amazing career marked by a willingness to shatter the stereotypes that sadly characterize hip hop culture in the eyes of many badly informed observers. Led by drummer ?uestlove and MC Black Thought, the collective’s discography totals eleven group album and three collaborations (with rapper Jay-Z and singers John Legend and Betty Wright) throughout twenty years. The hallmarks of their distinctive style are their use of acoustic instruments, the way that they mix different musical genres, and their poetic lyrics with existential themes.

Despite having never sold a platinum album, their single “You got me” was awarded a Grammy in 1999, and since 2009, they have been the house band of the NBC talk show “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon”. Although it is a shame that some people know them from their role on the show and not from their prolific recording output, the media exposure that they have achieved as a result of supporting a popular comedian has considerably expanded their audience.



The albums they released in the nineties create a relaxing ambience, something that many thought hip hop music could never do. However, this does not mean that the band limited itself to soft songs during this period. “Respond/React”, “Distortion to Static”, and “Adrenaline!” go back to hip hop’s essence with their abundance of complex rhymes and pulsating beats. “What they do” criticizes rappers that compromise their integrity in an attempt to boost their mass appeal and enlarge their bank accounts. Musically, the track combines hip hop attitude with melodic jazz guitar lines and smooth neo-soul hooks. Its accompanying music video, a satirical look at hip hop clichés, is one of the best of the decade.

Even after twenty years in the business, the group keeps finding ways to innovate within their unique mixture of rap, jazz, soul, and rock. Their last album, Undun, was released on December, 2011, and immediately hailed as a classic by many critics. A concept album that narrates the final 24 hours in the life of a young thug (in reverse chronological order), it might be their most profound and elaborate creation. Every song is a story within itself, but listening to them in succession gives the listener a complete perspective on a troubled and complex character. The music, which tends to be somber and dark, creates a contemplative and melancholic atmosphere that provides the ideal background for Black Thought’s introspective rhymes.

All of the Roots’ albums display the qualities that make their music so special, but their tendency to experiment gives each of them a unique personality. As a result, their legacy is not only centered on their abundant creativity, but also in the fact that they have never exploited trends to try and sell more records. This tendency mark their own path and establish new musical tendencies has brought them a lasting and successful career in a field where one can be forgotten a year after selling millions of albums.

In January, ?uestlove announced that the band is recording its twelfth studio album, as well as a collaboration with famed English rocker Elvis Costello. Also, last week Black Thought revealed that he is currently recording a blues album - his first solo record, and another chapter in the impressive trajectory of the Philadelphia collective.

Ray Allen's treasonous ways

Written on October 30, 2012



October 29, 2012 was an unforgettable day for Boston Celtics fans. Although watching the C’s in action is always special to us, this was a day marred by mixed emotions. The uncomfortable experience of witnessing Ray Allen wear a Miami Heat jersey for the first time left a sour taste in every diehard Celtic fan’s mouth.

Boston’s basketball culture is defined by the sense of unity between the players, their individual sacrifices in order to achieve common goals, and their love, respect, and passion towards the game. For Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Rajon Rondo, and coach Doc Rivers, basketball is the most important thing in the world. You won’t see them on the covers of fashion magazines or in too many TV commercials.

The same cannot be said about LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. These men love the limelight and use the power of publicity to promote themselves in every conceivable way. Their actions sometimes give the impression that they see basketball as merely a means to an end – becoming celebrities. In the words of Joakim Noah, they’re “Hollywood as hell”.

When Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett got traded to the Celtics in 2007, they admitted that they had a long way to go before they could win the championship that had eluded them throughout their careers. During interviews, they could barely contain their excitement when they said that they were anxious to practice together in order to grow as a team and achieve their goal. Their humility payed off; despite never making any guarantees, they won the title in their first year alongside Pierce, Rondo, and Rivers.

This is the complete opposite to what happened in the summer of 2010 when LeBron James and Chris Bosh signed with the Heat. The city of Miami welcomed them to the team in an extravagant ceremony with flashy pyrotechnics. The most infamous moment of the celebration was when James declared that the Heat would win “not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven” championships. The so-called “King” James did not live up to his boasts and the Heat fell to the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals.



When you compare these words (and this result) to Garnett’s and Allen’s, the difference between the two teams becomes abundantly clear: The Celtics represent humbleness and devotion to the game, and the Heat represent arrogance and entitlement.

As if the contrasting personalities of the opposing stars weren’t enough, the Heat had just defeated the Celtics in a grueling seven-game series a month before Allen switched sides. It is one thing to go to another team after having created near-fraternal bonds with your teammates (not to mention a love for the city of Boston that he claims to still possess), but it’s something else completely to join the team that shattered your dream of winning a second championship. This is perhaps the biggest reason why it hurts so much to see Ray leave. If he had gone to a Western Conference team it might not have been as difficult to swallow, but going to the conference rival who ended our (and his!) season is cringe worthy.

To put the situation into perspective, let’s compare Allen’s case to James Posey’s in 2008. A month after winning the championship with the C’s, Posey signed a 25 million dollar contract with the New Orleans Hornets. Plenty of fans gave him a hard time, but he never would have made that much money if he stayed in Boston. Ray Allen’s decision is even more baffling when you realize that the Celtics offered him 12 million dollars for two years, twice the amount that the Heat are paying him now.

When you add all this to the fact that Allen and Garnett joined the team at the same time, with the same goal, and with the same vision of what it would be to play together; his exit becomes an epic act of treason. Although Garnett has tried to avoid talking about all this to the media, his actions show that he feels betrayed by his former teammate. First, he said that he “lost” Allen’s number, and then he refused to shake hands with him during yesterday’s game. Paul Pierce and Doc Rivers, while saying that they “wish him the best”, also admitted that Allen’s decision hurt them on a personal level.



Fans of the now-deceased “Big 3” feel as if we had a girlfriend who was with us for five years and then said that she was leaving us for a guy who killed our grandmother the day before. We went through so many highs and lows with Allen – the first championship, being up by 13 points in the seventh game of the 2010 Finals and losing at the last moment, watching Ray become the all-time leading 3-point shooter in NBA history, losing to Miami in five games in 2011, and coming within one game of the Finals last season. I understand that it’s his right to play wherever he wants, but going to the team that has given us (and him, too) our saddest moments as fans makes us feel like we’ve been mercilessly stabbed in the back.

Judas Priest in Madrid concert review

Written on May 15, 2012



When I decided to go to Madrid as an exchange student, I knew that living in that city would give me the opportunity to attend more concerts than I could ever dream of in Puerto Rico. The amount of Rock bands that come to play in Spain is truly overwhelming, and even the most ardent music lover is bound to miss a few shows. However, one I could not pass up on was the mighty Judas Priest. Arguably the best Heavy Metal band of all-time (and certainly my favorite), they’re not called the “Metal Gods” for nothing. With numerous classic albums to their name, Priest have composed anthems whose popularity transcends the Metal genre.

After strong opening sets by UDO and Blind Guardian (hearing Udo’s band rip through “Fast as a Shark” was a particular highlight), Priest took the stage a little before 10 pm with their classic “Rapid Fire”. The band’s (as well as the crowd’s) energy level was extremely high. Scott Travis pounded the drums like a madman, the guitars were sounding extremely heavy, and Rob Halford’s voice was on point. “Metal Gods”, “Heading Out to the Highway”, and “Judas Rising” followed, and they were all great performances, especially the latter. I would’ve preferred “Freewheel Burning” over “Highway”, but it’s a minor complaint. “Highway” is the more popular track between the two, and if I had to bet on which one they’d perform, I would’ve put my money on the bigger hit.

At this point, the band decided to take it back to their first three albums. I was surprised (and slightly disappointed) that they played “Never Satisfied” off their debut album, Rocka Rolla. That record is not exactly a career highlight, to say the least. “Whatever, it’s just one song. The next ones will be better” I thought. Priest then proceeded to play “Victim of Changes”, “Starbreaker”, and “Diamonds & Rust”, so I was right, to an extent. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice to hear them, but they are all songs one would expect them to play. I would’ve loved to hear “Dissident Aggressor”, a song so heavy for its time, that Thrash pioneers Slayer covered it years later.

While all this is going on in my head, I realized that something very disheartening was happening right before my eyes – new guitarist Richie Faulkner sucks. It’s not that he can’t play K.K. Downing’s riffs and solos effectively; it’s that he has absolutely ZERO chemistry with Glenn Tipton. Now that K.K. is out of the group, the two-headed axe monster he created with Tipton is completely gone. Faulkner and Tipton do not play off other at all; they are clearly two separate guitarists who happen to be in the same band. When K.K. was up there, watching him play with Tipton was pure magic. They traded solos and riffs with ease, and even their body language suggested they were completely in tune with each other. Now that Faulker is in the band, the two guitar players just go through the motions as they stand on the opposite corners of the stage. As if this weren’t enough, it became clear that Halford’s voice had lost most of the power it had at the beginning of the concert.



The show hit its low point when the band “performed” their classic “Breaking the Law”. I’m still in shock from what I witnessed at that particular moment. When the band started to play the song and the crowd began to sing the words, Halford elevated his microphone stand to about 8 feet and proceeded to enact the song’s lyrics with hand gestures. I payed 65 euros to hear this mother fucker sing, and instead I’m hearing thousands of Spaniards scream the words in broken English. Needless to say, I was pissed. I don’t know if this means I’m too naïve, but I thought “maybe this is just something to get the crowd involved and he’s going to sing it after that!” Nope. Instead, the band left the stage and Scott Travis started to play a very average drum solo. I could tell that would lead into “Painkiller”, so being the huge Priest fan that I am, I kind of forgave Halford for taking “Breaking the Law” off. “Painkiller” is an extremely difficult song to sing, especially at his age, so I can’t blame the dude for needing a breather. But, fuck, not during “Breaking the Law”! Oh, well.

When Travis finally played the intro to the song, it was another disappointment. He slowed the tempo down considerably, which made the song lose much of its heaviness and attitude. Also, Halford’s break didn’t do anything to help his voice, as he was straining throughout the whole performance. His body was completely leaned over as he screamed the words into the mic. It could be seen by some even more naïve than me as a “Metal” pose, but I knew he did it because it was the only way that he could get out what little power he had left in his voice.



The next moment was also a major let-down. After leaving the stage for a while, Halford emerged with the Spanish flash draped over his shoulders and led the crowd to a series of “whoa yeah” chants. Amazingly, his voice sounded great! This also pissed me off. WHY COULDN’T HE JUST SING BREAKING THE LAW INSTEAD OF DOING THIS CRAP?! Ugh.

The last songs the band played were “Hell Bent for Leather” and “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’”. These two are undisputed Metal classics; so of course, they had to fuck them up. Halford’s voice was so gone at this point that he SPOKE the chorus to both songs instead of singing them. For a guy that’s so into having the crowd sing, he made it damn near impossible to sing along when he changed the melody of the songs to fit his faded voice. “There’s maaaanyyyy whooo triiiieeed to prooove thaaat they’re faaasteeer, but theeeyyy diiidn’t laaast aaand they diiieeed as they triiiiiiieeeeed” became “There’s many. Who tried. To prove. That they’re faster. They didn’t last. They died. As they tried”. LAME!

After finishing the set with random screams that seemed totally forced and unnecessary, as if to prove he “still had it” (if he truly had it, he would’ve skipped that crap and just sang the songs correctly), the band returned to play “Living after Midnight”. Perhaps not surprisingly, that was one of their best performances of the night. The song is pretty easy to play and sing, and always gets the crowd pumped up due to its simple structure and catchy melody.

In conclusion, I was very disappointed by this show. Some might say that they’ve been doing it for more than 40 years, so it’s obvious that they won’t sound the same as they at the height of their fame and glory, and that it’s my own fault for getting so overexcited. It’s a fair point, but I saw Aerosmith in 2007 and Iron Maiden in 2008, and those guys totally kicked ass. Bruce Dickinson and Steven Tyler have been screaming their lungs out for about the same time as Rob Halford, and they still sound amazing. While I can’t blame a 60 year-old man for being past his prime, I still expected more out of this experience. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go blast “Exciter” on my iPod and act like this never happened.

Get the Knack: A Forgotten Masterpiece

Written on March 13, 2012



Undoubtedly best known for their huge hit “My Sharona”, The Knack was a Power Pop band from Los Angeles who recorded one of the most underappreciated albums in Rock music, as well as one of my favorites. Despite going platinum in two months and staying at the #1 position on the Billboard charts for five weeks, Get The Knack was panned by critics who deemed the songs “sexist” and “misogynistic”. Subsequent releases that did not live up to the success of their debut relegated The Knack to “one-hit wonder” status. However, they connected with a new generation of listeners during the early 90s Grunge explosion, when Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain said his music sounded like “Black Sabbath playing The Knack” and named Get the Knack as one of his favorite albums of all-time.

The main reason why this record is so special to me is that its songs manage to compile almost every feeling I’ve experienced throughout my life when dealing with the opposite sex. Listening to this album is like taking a trip down memory lane that reunites me with every single ex-girlfriend, crush, and fuck-buddy I’ve ever had.  The female characters Doug Fieger describes in songs like “Frustrated”, “Good Girls Don’t”, and “She’s So Selfish” are all-too-real examples of specific kinds of women that one is sure to encounter in his late teens and early twenties. Who hasn’t met a girl who “makes you wanna scream, wishing you could get inside her pants”? How about one that keeps “pulling the string, but she’ll tie it in a knot before she gives you anything”? Perhaps you’ve crossed paths with a girl who “doesn’t care for nobody else”, but still “leaves you weak in the knees like a lovesick fool”?

If raunchy lyrics aren’t your cup of tea, I suggest you pay close attention to “Your Number or Your Name”, “Oh Tara”, and “Maybe Tonight”. These songs show their narrator to be a vulnerable, caring, and even shy individual as they brilliantly convey the agony of having a crush on a girl and not being able to tell her out of fear of being rejected. Everyone has felt unrequited love at some point in their life, but finding the courage to express your feelings can a daunting task for a young male. As someone who has lived through this more than once, I can’t help but identify with every line in these songs.

Of course, this wouldn’t mean anything if the music wasn’t top-notch, and aside from a couple of filler tracks (“Lucinda” and “Siamese Twins” are nothing to write home about), Get the Knack sounds like a greatest hits compilation. In addition to Doug Fieger’s superb ear for melody and captivating singing voice, his tight guitar playing perfectly complimented Berton Averre’s creative leads and formed one of the most interesting guitar combinations in Rock. Averre is a criminally underrated musician; while possessing more than enough technical ability, he avoided the overindulgence that was becoming commonplace in late 70s Rock and only let loose when absolutely necessary.



Producer Mike Chapman’s role in all this cannot be underestimated. Shocked that his name was not on the short list of producers The Knack wanted to work with, he contacted the band directly and convinced them that he was the right man for the job. His idea was to capture the energy of their live show, and the album was recorded in eleven days for a total of $17,000. The Knack’s official website says Chapman “basically hit the record button and let the band play”, as the record is almost completely devoid of overdubs. This straight-forward approach gives the music a timeless quality and an easygoing charm.

Perhaps the most noticeable aspect of the music on Get the Knack is Bruce Gary’s impeccable drumming. Influenced by Keith Moon and Ringo Starr, his metronome-like precision and creative fills inject the songs with a dose of energy that they would never have if played by an average drummer. Just listen to his manic playing on “Let Me Out” and “Your Number or Your Name”; even when apparently going crazy behind the kit, he always kept things sharp, precise, and melodic.

His most famous (and instantly recognizable) drum break is found in the beginning of the one song in this album that needs no introduction – the mighty “My Sharona”. Not only is it The Knack’s signature song, it has stood the test of time and become a cultural standard. People who have never heard the name “The Knack” are very familiar with its irresistible melody and automatically sing along whenever the hook comes on.  The song bears all of the band’s trademarks: sexual lyrics full of innuendos, a catchy chorus, excellent singing, powerful drumming, and one of the best guitar solos you will ever hear.

This record was made by four guys who genuinely loved playing together, and their enthusiasm comes through in the finished product. If you like Rock music of any kind (Pop-Rock, Hard Rock, Alternative Rock, etc.), do yourself a favor and buy this album. I can’t guarantee it will mean as much to you as it does to me (or as it did to Kurt Cobain), but I assure you that its energy and exuberance will bring you a profound sense of joy and gratification.