New Radicals frontman Gregg Alexander recently returned to the public spotlight by appearing at the Democratic National Convention more than three years after performing “You Get What You Give” during President Biden’s virtual inauguration party in 2021. He released two new band recordings—new versions of “Lost Stars” from the film Begin Again and a cover of “Murder on the Dancefloor”—that mark his first in 25 years, both in support of the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz ticket. But it’s not like Alexander went away, he just left the spotlight.
Alt-rock group New Radicals emerged in 1998 with the Platinum-selling album Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too and its infectious Top-40 single “You Get What You Give,” which had a very ‘70s piano-driven vibe to it. That song was a Top-10 hit in many countries and reportedly sold over a million units in the UK.
The group was essentially Alexander and singer/songwriter Danielle Brisebois, with support from the likes of future Paul McCartney touring guitarist Rusty Anderson, pianist/songwriter Rick Nowels, and drummer Josh Freese, among many others. While the “You Get What You Give” video featured the packaged rebellion of teens wreaking havoc in a mall—Freeing caged pets! Chasing and scaring adults! Stealing soft serve ice cream!—the song was actually more serious underneath, calling out corporate influence and vapid celebrity culture. But the trappings of fame, the rigors of touring, and the compromises of major label life disheartened Alexander, so he retreated from that world again.
Grosse Pointe Launch
Music fans who loved New Radicals may not know Alexander previously released two solo albums, Michigan Rain (1989) and Intoxifornication (1992), neither of which set the world on fire but have attracted a small and appreciative following.
Alexander was a young solo artist from Grosse Pointe, Michigan, who received major label interest when he was just 16 years old. He took himself and his demos out to L.A., crashed in people’s pads, worked on his music, and snagged a deal at A&M Records. Alexander’s 1989 debut album Michigan Rain was a highly unusual and unique teen rock recording that one rarely heard then or even now. It combined somber ballads, high energy rock tracks, and offbeat cuts spanning subjects like young love to the human cost of war.
Standout Selections
Beyond not conforming to the pop-metal or pop-dance trends of the late ‘80s, Michigan Rain stood out for different reasons. First off, Alexander’s quirky vocalizations ranged from faux-macho bravado to unexpected falsetto swoops and howls. The music often expressed both the emotional exuberance and hyperventilating that accurately reflected the social and hormonal changes a teenager goes through. Instead of trying to be a bubblegum pop artist or outrageous rocker, Alexander was just his idiosyncratic self—fumbling through the world, attempting to sort things out, trying to make sense of impending adulthood.
The exaggerated opening anthem “In the Neighborhood” spoke of youthful romantic obsession—a line like puttin’ me in jail won’t do no good / ’cause it’s still in the neighborhood made for tongue-in-cheek wordplay. The title track and “Five and Dimes and Pretty Crimes” chronicled impassioned flings—the former with a new flame, the latter with a store employee who plays hooky, leads him on a crime spree, lands him in jail, then goes back to work like nothing happened.
On the flip side, “Save Me from Myself” was a delicate ballad of heartbreak that blew up into a grand orchestrated section, but Alexander’s very low, groaning recitation of the song’s title indicated a wink to the maudlin nature of the tune. The final song, “The World We Love So Much,” felt like a nihilistic, even fatalistic downer, but actually captured the angst of a teen on the cusp of maturity and uncertainty, perhaps afraid of what the future might being. (Rivers Cuomo later covered it as an acoustic solo track.)
Noble Efforts
Despite being an original effort, Michigan Rain didn’t fare well. Three years later, Alexander landed on Sony with the album Intoxifornication, a more slickly produced album that beefed up the guitars. It recycled half of the tracks from his debut through new recordings and added some new songs. While it still retained the quirkiness and charm of his other material, this release felt more polished and a little less unpredictable. “The Truth” and “Wear Your Love Beside You” managed to rise above the other new cuts, the latter a dialogue of sorts between his outer voice and inner monologue. It was very Gregg Alexander.
Just as his debut ignored prevailing mainstream trends of the time, so too did Intoxifornication swim against the tide of grunge his label allegedly wanted him to soon conform to. Alexander then stepped back for a while and returned with the New Radicals recording six years later, this time on MCA. But with the big success of “You Get What You Give,” some backlash over the sociopolitical shout-outs in his lyrics, plus his refusal to play a lot of industry games, Alexander walked away from impending bigger fame and moved to London. He was down, but not out.
Scoring Big Behind the Scenes
During the 2000s, an invitation from Universal’s Lucian Grange to write and produce songs for Universal Music Group led to Alexander writing or co-writing many hits. He wrote four songs on Julio Iglesias’ 7 album and co-penned the Grammy Award-winning “The Game of Love” which was recorded by Carlos Santana and Michelle Branch. He co-wrote and co-produced Ronan Keating’s 2002 album Destination, which went Top 10 across Europe. He also co-wrote Hanson’s “Lost Without Each Other” (a UK Top-10 hit), Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder on the Dancefloor” (Top 10 across Europe, with sales topping 2 million), and more. He co-wrote and co-produced the songs for the 2013 film Begin Again, and the song “Lost Stars” landed an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song. (The latter two have recent new recordings, as mentioned above.)
Great work, if you can get it. And he did.
Alexander kept a low media profile for years, doing his first public interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2014 to talk about his journey. That journey began with a really unusual album that didn’t fit in any box and certainly didn’t even sound like what was going on back then, or now. Alexander has always cut against the grain, and that started with the underrated Michigan Rain.
It’s a debut that most people missed, and it is still worth checking out now.
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Photo by Mark Davis/Getty Images for The Santa Barbara International Film Festival
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