{from Amplifier #20 Sept./Oct. 2000)

Doug Fieger First Things First
(Zen Records)

Those who expect Doug Fieger to be the same grinning, oversexed lad who appeared on the cover of Get the Knack twenty years ago are likely to be disappointed by this, the Knack frontman's solo debut. For First Things First is adult pop at its absolute best, perfectly capturing the joys and the disappointments inherent to being a grown-up in the twenty-first century.

Unlike much of the Knack's work, First Things First is largely acoustic, allowing Fieger the freedom to use his distinctive voice to fill in much of the songs' emotion. And the emotion is here in buckets, most notably in the wistful "Wishing Doesn't Make It So," "You Gotta Be There," and Fieger's cover of the evergreen "Love Hurts," in which the heartbreak is so palpable that the listener almost feels as an intruder on a private painful moment.

Lest any Fieger fan fear Doug has lost his will to rock, check out the biting "Shake Me," and an alternate version of "Ambition" which makes the fact that the Knack's 1998 Zoom album was so criminally underappreciated that much more of a bitter pill.

With Zoom and now First Things First, Doug Fieger is on a true roll. Here's to hoping he goes three-for-three.

-- Rick Schadelbauer