R.I.P.: Greg Kihn Rock Singer-Songwriter

Greg Kihn (1949-2024)

Greg Kihn, the rock singer-songwriter who scored with “Jeopardy” and “The Breakup Song (They Don’t Write ‘Em)” and helped definite an era of power pop in the 1980s, died Tuesday at age 75, reports Variety citing a family statement. The cause of death was complications from Alzheimer’s disease.

With the Greg Kihn Band, the singer reached No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1981 with “The Breakup Song,” scaling even greater heights in 1983 with “Jeopardy,” which hit No. 2 on the national chart and became an early staple of the nascent MTV. The latter song continues to be part of the public consciousness not just because of its own enduring earworm qualities, but because of a popular parody by “Weird Al” Yankovic, “I Lost on Jeopardy.”

Kihn was part of the Beserkley Records stable of artists to come out of the Bay Area in the mid-’70s, having released his first song as a solo artist on the influential compilation “Beserkley Chartbusters Vol. 1” in 1976, coming up alongside such labelmates as Jonathan Richman, the Rubinoos and Earth Quake.

“We weren’t like the other SF bands,” Kihn said in a 2018 interview. “Our music was derived from the British bands like the Who and the Faces. We were always writing new songs, and the fans came back week after week to see what we’d come up with. It was all about the songs, not the jamming.

Before moving to San Francisco in 1972, Kihn grew up in Baltimore, and won a talent contest sponsored by a local radio station while still in high school. He signed with Beserkley in 1973, though it would not be till 1976 that he released his first album, “Greg Kihn.”

Eventually he established a pattern of pun-fueled titles, with album releases that included “Next of Kihn” (1978), “RocKihnRoll” (1981), “Kihntinued” (1982), “Kihntagious” 1984) and “Rekihndled” (2017).

He was also a morning host for Classic Rock KFOX in San Jose for 17 years.