Deep Album Cuts Vol. 366: The Greg Kihn Band
Greg Kihn, best known for the early '80s hits "Jeopardy" and "The Breakup Song," passed away a couple weeks ago at the age of 75. He grew up in Baltimore and was less than a year older than my father -- in fact they both attended Poly (Baltimore Polytechnic Institute) at the same time. I never heard any stories from my dad about knowing or crossing paths with Kihn, but I still feel a certain kihnship with him because of that (Kihn and my father both loved puns).
2. Cold Hard Cash
3. Someday
4. Real Big Man
5. All The Right Reasons
6. In The Naked Eye
7. Sound System
8. Things To Come
9. Make Up
10. Fascination
11. Worse Or Better
12. Nothing's Gonna Change
13. Hurt So Bad
14. Beat of the Night
15. Museum
16. Temper, Tempter
17. Don't Expect To Be Right
18. Can't Have The Hights (Without The Lows)
19. Night After Night
20. Paint You A Picture
21. Confrontation Music
22. I'm In Love Again
23. Tell Me Lies
Track 5 from Beserkley Chartbusters Vol. 1 (1975)
Tracks 11 and 17 from Greg Kihn (1976)
Tracks 4 and 13 from Greg Kihn Again (1977)
Tracks 2 and 15 from Next of Kihn (1978)
Tracks 6 and 18 from With the Naked Eye (1979)
Tracks 8 and 19 from Glass House Rock (1980)
Tracks 1 and 12 from RocKihnRoll (1981)
Tracks 7 and 23 from Kihntinued (1982)
Tracks 3 and 10 from Kihnspiracy (1983)
Tracks 9 and 21 from Kihntagious (1984)
Tracks 16 and 22 from Citizen Kihn (1985)
Tracks 14 and 20 from Love and Rock and Roll (1986)
Greg Kihn moved to California in 1974 and lived in the Bay Area for the rest of his life. Some of Kihn's albums were nominally solo albums and some of them were credited to The Greg Kihn Band, but he pretty much had the same backing band for most of those records and I think they're a big part of his sound. Kihn even spotlighted the other members' songs a bit more than most guys with eponymous bands -- drummer Larry Lynch wrote and sang "Can't Have the Highs (Without the Lows)" and bassist Steve Wright wrote and sang "Night After Night."
Kihn was part of the Beserkley Records roster alongside Jonathan Richman, Earth Quake and the Rubinoos. In fact, The Greg Kihn Band backed Richman on the first released version of "Roadrunner" on the 1974 Beserkley Chartbusters Vol. 1 compilation (the Modern Lovers version was recorded earlier, but released later). "All the Right Reasons" was one of Kihn's two songs on Chartbusters, and a few years later Kihn sang "Roadrunner" on his With the Naked Eye album.
Kihn is kind of known for being one of the few "power pop" acts who actually had a pretty successful chart run, and honestly he probably could've had even more hits if he picked some different singles, some of these deep cuts are catchy as hell. Kihn cranked out 11 albums in 11 years, the period I covered in this playlist, and then his output became more sporadic, with just a handful of albums in recent decades that mostly aren't available on streaming services. The '80s with his biggest hits are pretty strong, but I think Next of Kihn might be his best, that one just rocks a little harder than his other records.
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