New Radicals: Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too

One of the better one-hit wonders of recent years came from a guy so used to being rejected that he turned his back on stardom once it came knocking. New Radicals—hardly new, nor that radical—was largely the work of one Gregg Alexander, who’d already put out two albums nobody bought under his own name on two major labels. Somehow the third time was the charm for this band, which consisted mostly of studio musicians (one of whom has been playing with Paul McCartney since the turn of the century) plus Danielle Brisbois, a singer/actress known mostly for her work on Broadway in Annie, on TV in Archie Bunker’s Place, and on Skinemax in Big Bad Mama II.

If they’re remembered at all these days, it’s for “You Get What You Give”, which most people think is called “You Got The Music In You”. It’s an incredibly infectious tune, even if you don’t dance, endorsed by people as diverse as the Edge, Ice-T and Joni Mitchell. At first few listens, the rest of Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too sounded like an unholy cross between World Party and Jamiroquai: great grooves but you’d heard them all before. But after a while, it was hard to ignore pop this tasty.

Vocally, Alexander occasionally resembles Karl Wallinger, the one man behind the band World Party, making that a good frame of reference for New Radicals. For the most part the album has a clean sound, with lots of guitars and piano, and few production tricks. Not everything works; the “title track” is mostly a mumbled jam with printed lyrics not even close to what he’s really saying. For the most part you don’t want to listen to the words anyway. The “hip” drug references seem typically contrived for the bucket-hatted white kid on the cover, and in the case of “I Hope I Didn’t Just Give Away The Ending”, the story isn’t worth paying attention much deeper than the music. “Mother We Just Can’t Get Enough” and “Jehovah Made This Whole Joint For You” continue the promise of the groove in “You Get What You Give”, while “Someday We’ll Know” (later covered by Hall & Oates, on a version featuring Todd Rundgren), “Gotta Stay High” and “I Don’t Wanna Die Anymore” are almost pretty, and even romantic. Somehow nobody figured out that “Crying Like A Church On Monday” is actually “Sweet Sweet Surrender” by Beck, Bogert & Appice with a hook in the chorus.

Just as the album was about to really take off—around the time of the second single—Alexander pulled the plug. Since then he’s concentrated on production work and songwriting for the likes of Carlos Santana in his modern-day big-name collaboration phase. In other words, he came, he saw, and he went away. But as long as “You Get What You Give” still sounds so good, we can be glad he bothered to show up.

New Radicals Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too (1998)—4