“My Sharona” by The Knack

"My Sharona" was the Knack's first single, pulled from their debut album Get the Knack in 1979, and it went off like a firecracker in a phone booth: a stuttering, relentless riff, a beat that never lets up and a vocal twitching with nervous energy. Doug Fieger and Berton Averre wrote it, and it's power pop boiled down to its most primal, hook after hook with nothing wasted.

It spent six weeks on top of the Hot 100 and finished 1979 as Billboard's number-one single of the year. Capitol hadn't seen a debut single go gold that fast since the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in 1964, and by 2010 it had sold more than 10 million copies.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.