October 23, 1998

New Radicals: Brainwashing You With 'Dangerous Pop'

On a Friday night in Los Angeles, there are quite a few places you don't want to be, and cruising in a car stuck on the Sunset Strip is one of them. Unless, of course, between staring at high- heeled hookers to the left and Hollywood (wannabe) hipsters on the right, you happen to hear your song blaring from a car going in the opposite direction. Not your song as in that Phil Collins song that reminds you of your fifth grade girlfriend or boyfriend, but your song -- the one you wrote, composed, and literally poured your heart and soul into. That's exactly what happened to Gregg Alexander, the mastermind behind New Radicals.
  

"A couple of Saturday nights ago, I was in a car with a couple of buddies of mine," recalls Alexander. "There was way too much traffic on Sunset Blvd. and I heard ["You Get What You Give"] blasting out of a car on the other side. There were all these kids really getting into it. I was a little stoned and was like, 'What the fuck?' It felt like a scene out of those 1950s movies where everybody is hi-fiving each other."
  

If it seemed rather surreal at first, Alexander should be prepared to get used to it. New Radicals' debut album, Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too (released on Oct. 20 on MCA Records), is poised to spend the better part of 1999 digging its catchy, retro-pop heels into radios nationwide. The video for "You Get What You Give" was deemed BuzzWorthy by the powers that be at MTV, and had an impressive first week at alternative and top 40 radio -- and there are 11 more gems on the album where that came from.
   In a nutshell, New Radicals are on the heels of becoming an overnight sensation. If you are one of the few who hasn't caught the fever yet, think the squawk of a youthful Mick Jagger and the sound of the Blow Monkeys circa Animal Magic. Just don't think Pearl Jam or Nirvana circa anytime.
  

"There is a whole pathetic precedent that if a song is angry, or has loud guitars on it, or somebody is screaming, then it's relevant," says Alexander. "There's no subtlety in that. We all claim to want sophistication in our art or music, yet when a really profound and meaningful dance song comes on, it all of a sudden gets relegated to meaninglessness. So 'You Get What You Give' is trying to break type by having an upbeat, uplifting song with some anger."
   In all fairness, Alexander didn't have all that much to be angry about anyway, growing up in the fairly affluent Detroit suburb of Grosse Point, Mich. The son of a plumber father and Jehovah's Witness mother, it took Alexander three previous tries to figure out his current formula. He had two albums on A&M Records as Gregg Alexander (1989's Save Me from Myself and Michigan Rain), both of which are described as "ambitious songs with a Phil Spector- like production approach" by Alexander's manager, and one on Epic Records three years later (Intoxifornication).
  

Alexander has spent the majority of his 20s on the road (he drove across the country 12 times, including once with his mother), and the 28- year- old has seen a lot in his day as a result. Like the time he was caught somewhere in Kansas with 240 cases of individually- wrapped apple sauces in the trunk of his convertible (don't ask) or the time he got frostbite from running barefoot out into the stone cold Michigan winter looking for his miniature schnauzer. With fodder like that, it's no wonder there's a wealth of potential chart- toppers on his latest offering.
  

On Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too, Alexander wastes no breath shoving his opinions down our throats via near- perfect pop accolades, and in person, he ain't too shy either. Some of his quotes may be hard to swallow on the surface, like this one:

"We have a whole middle class in America who

think that they're just rocking and rolling because we

all have a VCR and we can rent as many movies we

want per week from Blockbuster, and can go on vacation

once or twice a year".

Or this:

"Anyone who knows what they are doing past the

age of 21 years old, who chooses to stay in this medium,

has to be a live wire, because it's not

exactly conducive to a carefree life."

 

But that's the way Alexander's mind works -- about 500 mph faster than the rest of us. Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too is the beautiful aftermath of those thoughts, even if it won't be a hit with the angry- cum- louder crowd.
  

"It's obvious -- but uncool -- to say in this day and age, when you actually speak in uplifting generalizations, there is a danger of it being considered trite, so that was one of the motivations for me in making what I consider one of the most dangerous pop records to come along in a while," says Alexander. "But it will really be up to the machine to see if it gets through to second and third base."

~ Kevin Raub ~

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