written by Greg Kihn and Steve Wright

produced by Matthew King Kaufman

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I’m making this page on July 10th, 2021, the 72nd birthday of

singer/songwriter Gregory Stanley Kihn, better known to us all

as simply Greg Kihn, of, funnily enough, The Greg Kihn Band.

Happy Birthday, GK!!

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Greg’s from Baltimore, Maryland, and was influenced young by The Beatles, specifically on The Ed Sullivan Show (probably the program’s most famous act). When Greg was in his mid-20s, he moved to San Francisco, following the conventional 20th century singer-songwriter mold of playing songs at local clubs and coffee houses for a start. He worked at a record store and performed as a street musician before getting his first record deal, with Beserkley Records. His debut album from ’76 was eponymous and billed solo, though played with the same gentlemen who became the Band a few years later.

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By the end of the ’70s, they were being billed as The Greg Kihn Band, and had charted with two albums and a single, “Remember.” Greg’s ’78 album, while still billed solo, was Next Of Kihn, the first in a string of pun-titled records. Throughout the ’80s and beyond, he and the group dropped the following titles—

· RocKihnRoll (1981)

· Kihntinued (1982)

· Kihnspiracy (1983)

· Kihntagious (1984)

· Citizen Kihn (1985)

· Kihnsolidation (1989)

· UnKihntrollable (1991)

· Kihn Of Hearts (1992)

· True Kihnfessions (2000)

· Kihnplete (2011)

· ReKihndled (2017)

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RocKihnRoll featured the band’s first major hit with “The Breakup Song (They Don’t Write ’Em).” It Top 40’d, including hitting #15 on Billboard’s Hot 100. Three equally modest singles from Kihntinued followed, to RocKihnRoll’s own three... and then 1983 came along.

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“Jeopardy,” sometimes labeled as “(Our Love’s In) Jeopardy,” became the act’s easily biggest hit yet and since, reaching #2 on Hot 100 and #1 on US Dance. Even more memorable is its comically nightmarish music video. When “Weird Al” Yankovic parodied the song into “I Lost On Jeopardy” the following year (breathing a bit of new life into the game show shortly before it was brought back on the air with Alex Trebek as host), it was one of the few times he didn’t also closely parody the video—for pretty self-evident reasons. Although just as Greg rides off in the limo at the end of his own video, he also appears at the end of Weird Al’s “I Lost On Jeopardy” video, again popping the champagne and driving off, Al having been unceremoniously tossed into the back seat.

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Have notes to add? Let me know!

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YT:

full version

music video

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Greg’s official website