Greg Kihn, a low-key singer-songwriter who drew inspiration from Buddy Holly and the Beatles while carving out a space for straightforward power pop at the height of the 1980s synthpop era with hits like “Jeopardy” and “The Breakup Song (They Don’t Write ‘Em),” died Tuesday near San Francisco. He was 75.

His death in a health facility was due to complications of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a statement posted on his website on Thursday.

During his heyday in the 1980s, Mr. Kihn was a confident throwback, managing to thrive on MTV when it had cast a massive shadow over the music landscape and the scene seemed largely divided between fashion-conscious new wave bands with plastic haircuts and pop-metal bands in spandex.

With his regular guy persona, mullet haircut and boyish good looks reminiscent of the actor Beau Bridges, Mr. Kihn embodied the charm of raw rock ‘n’ roll. “I’d like to have hair like A Flock of Seagulls, but I could never spend all day combing it, man,” he told Rolling Stone in 1983. “I can just be myself and they pay me for it.”

The Greg Kihn Band’s breakthrough came with “The Breakup Song” from the album “Rockihnroll”. The pulsating rock song, which is based on a tinkling guitar riff, reached number 15 on the Billboard singles charts in May 1981. The following year, the band had a minor hit with “Happy Man” from the album “Kihntinued”, which reached number 62.

Mr. Kihn’s lively, very likeable radio hits were well received – too well received by some critics. “Greg Kihn is a nice guy,” Karen Schlosberg once wrote in the rock magazine Trouser Press. “That’s his problem. He’s too laid back for passionate rock’n’roll, too crude for pure pop. Imagine Tom Petty without the anguish of soul, Bruce Springsteen without New Jersey.” Long-time Village Voice critic Robert Christgau once called him a “Kihnformist.”

Mr. Kihn responded to his critics with “Jeopardy,” which shot to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1983 while receiving continuous play on MTV.

He received an additional publicity boost the following year with Weird Al Yankovic’s parody song “I Lost on Jeopardy,” in the video of which Mr. Kihn made a cameo appearance.

Despite all this, Mr. Kihn expressed no desire to change his band’s straightforward approach. There would be no dry ice or fog machines at his live shows.

“We want people to come back to hear the music,” he said in a 1982 interview with the Ukiah Daily Journal of Northern California. “I mean, nobody goes to see Bruce Springsteen for the light show.”

Gregory Stanley Kihn was born in Baltimore on July 10, 1949. Like many rockers of his time, he decided to become a musician after seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show.

“I know it sounds absurd – most 5-year-old boys say they want to be a fireman or a policeman or a baseball player or even president,” he told CBS News in 2014. “Not me. I wanted to be one of the Beatles.”

Mr. Kihn began playing in local folk clubs while in high school. In 1974, he moved to San Francisco and eventually settled in Berkeley, where he signed with the influential independent label Beserkley Records, whose record labels include Jonathan Richman.

Mr. Kihn and his band stood out in a music scene long known for the free improvisation of bands like the Grateful Dead, but also Santana and Journey in their early years.

“We weren’t like the other SF bands,” he said in a 2018 interview with Music Recall Magazine. “Our music was inspired by British bands like The Who and The Faces.”

“It was all about the songs,” he added, “not the jamming.”

Although his band became a local hit, their first five albums failed to achieve commercial success. “The question is why Greg Kihn hasn’t made it yet,” he told Rolling Stone in 1980. “I don’t know and I don’t care. … I’m not worried about taking the throne anymore.”

That changed the next year with “The Breakup Song,” which launched a career that lasted throughout the 1990s and included more than 15 albums in total. His first album in 17 years, “Rekihndled,” was released in 2017.

In the mid-1990s, Mr. Kihn became a popular disc jockey at local classic rock station KFOX, a job he held until 2012. He has also published six novels, including the thrillers “Painted Black,” about the death of Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, and “Rubber Soul,” about the Beatles.

He leaves behind his wife, Jay Arafiles-Kihn, a son, Ryan Kihn, a daughter, Alexis Harrington-Kihn, a sister, Laura Otremba, and two grandchildren.

Despite his career as a rock star – which included opening for the Rolling Stones on their groundbreaking 1981 tour – Kihn described himself as a kind of curator of rock ‘n’ roll.

“I just want what I like to survive,” he told Rolling Stone in 1983. “I want kids who grow up and get their first guitars to learn Chuck Berry riffs. That’s important me.”