The great flaw in the éclair of power pop is its gooey center: a sugary good nature that quickly spoils your appetite for this dessert of a rock genre. The guitars may be crashing out feverishly peppy riffs, the drums may be bashing tough little beats that hit you below the belt, but most power-pop bands seem to be fronted by some toothy pretty-boy who wants only to chirp about his keen girl...

Of course, there's no way to win with a record like this. Like the Eddie Haskel-type kid down the block, who was always spotless and mannerly but innately a creep (remember Leave It to Beaver?), there's no way to convince Mom–or the fans – that it's all a fraud. Who'd believe you?

There was once a pernicious rumor to the effect that Alice Cooper was Eddie Haskel. What Alice ever did to...

The Knack have a lot to answer for, and they know it. Only someone with an incredibly short memory could forget the trumped-up Beatlemania of their 1979 debut album, Get the Knack, and their arrogant stonewalling of the media. Such strategy merely reinforced the suspicion that the runaway success of the LP and its flagship single, "My Sharona," was actually a triumph of marketing over music. "My...