Again in the summertime of 1999, amid Phantom Menace fever and fears of the Millenium bug, New Radicals‘ pop-rock smash hit “You Get What You Give” was inescapable. For Gregg Alexander, the one-man-band behind the group, it was everything he’d ever needed. New Radicals’ debut album, Possibly You’ve Been Brainwashed Too, adopted swimsuit, changing into a worldwide hit. It appeared like the beginning of one thing massive. And but, because the album’s second single, the bittersweet ballad “Someday We’ll Know,” was about to launched, Alexander disbanded the group and walked away from all of it.
That success was a very long time coming. Alexander was raised in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, by “a low-grade dysfunctional family”, as he advised Spin in 1999. A youthful love of music grew to become an obsession when he sneaked right into a screening of Prince’s Purple Rain film. “‘Let’s Go Crazy’ knocked me over my head,” Alexander recalled in a 2014 Hollywood Reporter interview. “Then when I heard ‘The Beautiful Ones’ it was all over.”
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Alexander was so intoxicated by rock’n’roll, he made plans to maneuver to Los Angeles to comply with his dream, leaving highschool battle of the bands competitions behind. “I didn’t want to be part of organised religion or follow the same path as my schoolmates into college and a career that I didn’t love,” he advised The Guardian in 2024. “I was willing to throw it all away for rock’n’roll.”
Not solely did he make good on his plans to maneuver, however by 16 he’d signed a manufacturing cope with A&M Information and three years later launched his debut solo album, 1989’s Michigan Rain. The album failed to attach with an viewers, not helped by an absence of promotion from a label present process a takeover from Polygram. Alexander’s second bid for stardom got here when he signed to Epic for 1993’s Intoxifornication, however grunge was nonetheless in vogue and his sound was out of step. “I refused to sound like that because it wasn’t me,” he later stated. “I couldn’t fake that. I had to follow my heart creatively.” The album flopped and as soon as once more, Alexander was in search of a document deal.
Regardless of the setbacks, Alexander continued writing, decided to comply with his personal imaginative and prescient. He referred to as upon Danielle Brisebois – a baby actor turned musician who was within the authentic solid of Annie on Broadway aged eight – who had sung backing vocals on Intoxifornication to type a gaggle, New Radicals. To economize, they booked late night time studio periods and recorded the demos that might turn out to be Possibly You’ve Been Brainwashed Too. The thought was to “completely rip up” the “few rules that applied to my first two records…,” he advised the Hollywood Reporter. “Most of that record was me pulling favors with studios or musicians that had played on earlier records and were like, ‘Oh, Gregg’s down on his luck — let’s go play on his demo for the hell of it, we’ll have a good laugh, have a couple of beers and maybe smoke a jay or whatever.’”
A demo from the periods discovered their approach to Michael Rosenblatt, the A&R man who’d signed Madonna, who was impressed sufficient to supply New Radicals a contract. “We captured something that I thought the music business, even at that time, had become too big-business and corporate to acknowledge,” Alexander stated of the album. “But, to my pleasant surprise, somebody wanted to sign me [again]. I couldn’t believe it.”
Amazingly, a lot of the songs Alexander recorded with a bunch of buddies – together with Rusty Anderson, who went on to play in Paul McCartney’s stay band from 2001 onwards – have been mastered direct from that demo tape for Possibly You’ve Been Brainwashed Too. However one of many tracks specifically demanded a extra skilled recording. “’You Get What You Give’ was the only time I had an unlimited budget,” Alexander advised The Guardian. “That’s why that song has so many different sections and melodies. Pop. Rock. Soul. Pianos. I figured, ‘Nobody may ever even hear this, so let’s throw in the kitchen sink and the bathwater as well.”
The funding paid for itself many occasions over. “You Get What You Give” reached the UK Prime 5 and the US Billboard Prime 40 on its launch and have become a radio staple. It has since turn out to be one of the enduring songs of the Nineties.
However “You Get What You Give” was a Computer virus. On the floor was the tune’s joyful exuberance, relentless hooks, and hope-filled refrain, however its lyrics noticed Alexander taking purpose on the ills of society. “In a pop song, I was going after health insurance companies and corruption — ‘Health insurance rip off lying’; the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, and the hypocrisy of the war on drugs, which was not real; ‘big bankers’ and Wall Street. To allude to all that stuff in a pop song was, in retrospect, a naively crazy proposition,” he later conceded.
The ultimate part of the tune discovered Alexander chopping unfastened and railing towards a number of pop stars, together with Courtney Love, Beck, and Marilyn Manson. He later defined to The Guardian that the jokey digs have been a results of his “naive curiosity, whether a pop song had the audacity to go after bankers, the FDA, health insurance companies and corruption and include a throwaway lyric about three or four artists. I got the answer loud and clear because almost nobody asked me about the political lyrics, which are its legacy. Twenty-five years ago, all that stuff was on the horizon, but nobody could have imagined that it would get so much worse. That song was my own innocent attempt to fight the power.”
An upside was that “You Get What You Give” earned Alexander the admiration of his songwriting heroes. In 2000, Joni Mitchell advised Rolling Stone, “That’s the first song since I was a teenager that I rushed to the radio to turn up. I like the harmony, I like the passion in his voice. I love the song, you know, ‘You got the music in you,’ and I love the punk irreverence of it. Now, that’s my kind of punky white boy.” Alexander later revealed that each George Michael and Prince had advised him they have been followers.
Nonetheless, there was a lot extra to Possibly You’ve Been Brainwashed Too than its hit single. “Mother We Just Can’t Get Enough” swaggers alongside just like the Stones’ “Sympathy For The Devil” gone disco, with Alexander demonstrating his vocal prowess with some wild screams. It’d later be coated by U2. The stadium-sized anthem “Flowers” additionally exhibits Alexander’s rock chops.
Elsewhere, “I Hope I Didn’t Just Give Away The Ending,” “I Don’t Wanna Die Anymore,” and “Crying Like A Church On Monday” level to Alexander’s expertise for soulful ballads with a lyrical edge. And songs such because the voodoo vibes of the observe and the infectious country-pop of “Technicolor Lover” underline Alexander’s vary as a author.
The hit that would’ve been was “Someday We’ll Know,” a slow-burning mid-paced ballad that finds Alexander posing unanswerable questions (“Did the captain of the Titanic cry?”) earlier than a hovering refrain. It’s straightforward to think about it being a success and a video was even made for it, however on the eve of its launch, Alexander referred to as it quits, releasing a press release which confirmed the New Radicals, “[would] no longer be a recording, promoting, or performing entity,” and that he can be writing for different artists, as “the fatigue of traveling and getting three hours’ sleep in a different hotel every night to do boring ‘hanging and schmoozing’ with radio and retail people is definitely not for me.”
He made good on his promise and has since written for Sophie Ellis-Bextor (together with the disco phenomenon “Murder On The Dancefloor,” which he advised The Guardian was virtually a New Radicals tune), Ronan Keating (the UK No 1 “Love Is A Rollercoaster”), Santana (the Grammy-winning “The Game Of Love”) and lots of extra. In latest interviews, he has urged he’s nonetheless a prolific author and that he could also be sitting on a treasure trove of unreleased gems, although he’s cautious. “Songs are like children,” he defined to Billboard in 2018. “You want to protect them, but I’m delighted when some make their way out in the world.” Pop lovers all over the world hope that we hear rather more from him quickly.
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