FEATURE:
Too Good to Be Forgotten: Songs That Are Much More Than a Guilty Pleasure
New Radicals – You Get What You Give
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ONE can scarcely believe songs that some deem…
to be guilty pleasures. I guess, if you feel there is no such thing as a guilty pleasure, then everything is open and good. That is the view I share so, for those tracks that are labelled with that term, I am here to shed some new light and fight their corner. Not that the New Radicals’ You Get What You Give is lacking in any punch and fighting spirit! This is a song that appears on Spotify’s playlist of guilty pleasures. There are some interestingly-chosen tracks that I feel are worthy of shouting about. There is no doubt that there some pretty dodgy songs floating around in the 1990s and, whilst New Radicals might be seen as a one-hit wonder, it is one of those hits that is sort of timeless and properly good! Released in 1998 by the Californian band, You Get What You Give reached number-thirty on the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay rundown in January 1999; number-thirty-six on the overall Hot 100 and number-eight on the Billboard Modern Rock chart. It also reached number-five in the United Kingdom, number-four in Ireland, and number-one in Canada and New Zealand. According to Wikipedia:
“In the liner notes to her 2004 compilation Artist's Choice, Joni Mitchell praises "You Get What You Give" for "rising from the swamp of 'McMusic' like a flower of hope.” In 2006, Ice-T was asked on Late Night with Conan O'Brien about what he has heard, besides rap music, in the last few years that really grabbed him and his only reply was "You Get What You Give". In a Time interview, U2 lead guitarist The Edge is quoted saying "You Get What You Give" is the song he is "most jealous of. I really would love to have written that".
You Get What You Give is taken from the Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too which, as an album, is one of the more underrated of those from the 1990s. It has gathered critical acclaim and, rather than it being one terrific song and lesser numbers, there is an amazing consistency throughout. With songs like Someday We'll Know, and I Hope I Didn't Just Give Away the Ending, there is ample quality on that exceptional album. With the vocal and songwriting power of Gregg Alexander (he co-wrote You Get What You Give with Rick Nowels) making the song such an anthem, it is a shame that some (more than Spotify) consider You Get What You Give as a guilty pleasure or something novelty from the 1990s. I am not sure whether it is some slightly younger, cynical sources feeling the song is overrated or those who remember it from the 1990s feeling it sound dated…but I love the song and think it can rub shoulders with the finest of the ‘90s. Far from it being a light and harmless song, there was actually a bit of controversy regarding the last verse: “"Health insurance, rip-off lying/FDA, big bankers buying/Fake computer crashes dining/Cloning while they're multiplying/Fashion shoots with Beck and Hanson/Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson/You're all fakes, run to your mansions/Come around, we'll kick your ass in". Gregg Alexander sort of used that verse to see whether people would pick up on the more political elements or the celebrity-riling lines.
Predictably, there was a bit of blowback. Marilyn Manson objected to the mention, whereas Alexander apologised to Beck when he saw him in a supermarket – Hanson, too, were pretty cool with the reference (Alexander actually collaborated with Hanson). There have been plenty of diss songs since You Get What You Give but, unlike many, the New Radicals meant nothing by. I want to finish by bringing in a feature from The A.V. Club, that starts off by stating how the music scene altered post-Grunge:
“Ben Folds Five’s worldview ranged from sardonic to sentimental to caustic, while Semisonic, Fastball, and Fountains Of Wayne crafted power-pop that was classic-sounding, catchy, and smart. An even weirder slew of one-hit wonders sprouted on modern rock radio, especially at the tail-end of the ’90s and into 2000: Marcy Playground’s “Sex And Candy,” Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping,” Wheatus’ “Teenage Dirtbag,” Len’s “Steal My Sunshine,” Bran Van 3000’s “Drinking In L.A.,” Marvelous 3’s “Freak Of The Week,” Harvey Danger’s “Flagpole Sitta,” Fretblanket’s “Into The Ocean,” and Citizen King’s “Better Days.” (Swirl 360’s “Hey Now Now,” despite its presence in the Top 40, felt like a lost alternative music classic in the vein of Sloan and Fastball.) With the exception of “Flagpole Sitta,” most of these songs never became wildly influential—in fact, a large portion of these bands gathered dust in the dollar bins, sunk by their own novelty—but they made the teeming underbelly of alternative-rock radio far more interesting”.
Although there is a goofiness to You Get What You Give on one level, the song is almost like a message from Alexander to himself to keep going and continue on. He previously released too fairly unsuccessful solo albums - 1989’s Michigan Rain and 1992’s Intoxifornication -, so New Radicals was almost like a last shot at getting a hit. The A.V. Club note that, whilst You Get What You Give is fairly similar to a lot of ‘90s hits, it has endured and has definitely transcended the status of a one-time gem:
“On paper, New Radicals’ “You Get What You Give” isn’t drastically different than many of the other one-hit wonders of the late ’90s. The tune is airy-sounding and uplifting in a general way, courtesy of frontman Gregg Alexander’s soaring falsetto. Musically, it’s vaguely alternative-sounding, between the electric guitar corkscrews and optimistic piano chords popping out of the mix here and there, although it possesses enough of an accessible pop sheen to explain why it scraped the bottom of the Top 40. (The song was co-written by Rick Nowels, who went on to co-write huge hits for Dido, Madonna, and Lana Del Rey, and features contributions from Rusty Anderson, a former member of Ednaswap who’s now Paul McCartney’s guitarist.) The bridge contains a spoken-word section that Alexander often transformed into a near-rap live, in a nod to the era’s growing conflation of hip-hop and rock, while the vocalist’s forceful, half-spoken, half-sung delivery on the chorus made it easy (and fun) to sing along to.
The attention given to his critique of fame underscored his distaste for the culture’s emphasis on celebrity attention, something else that would only grow more intense and pervasive in the coming years. “My favorite artists—Prince, [David Lee] Roth-era Van Halen, even Madonna when she was doing cutting-edge work—they were mysteries to me and my friends,” Alexander said in 2014. “That was part of what made their work compelling, was that we didn’t have their opinions tweeted and Facebooked every 30 seconds. I didn’t know what Prince was having for dinner, thank God. So that was some of what I idealized and thought would be more present in my life as an artist.”
“So even though “You Get What You Give” stayed in the mainstream’s consciousness during the next 15 years, Alexander retreated from the public eye, at least under his own name. Using a pseudonym, he wrote or co-wrote major European hits (including Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder On The Dancefloor” and Ronan Keating’s “Life Is a Rollercoaster”), as well as songs for Spice Girls’ Mel C and Geri Halliwell, Boyzone, and Enrique Iglesias. With Nowels, he also co-wrote Santana’s massive, Grammy-winning hit “The Game Of Love,” which in its demo form isn’t that far off from New Radicals’ amiable style, and was also part of a collective called the Not So Silent Majority, which put together an effervescent song called “Obama Rock” around the time of the president’s 2009 inauguration. More recently, Alexander penned songs for the 2013 movie Begin Again with Nowels and his longtime musical collaborator Danielle Brisebois. One of these tunes, “Lost Stars,” was even nominated for an Oscar, precipitating his brief return to the limelight. The template Alexander created on “You Get What You Give” turned out to be surprisingly influential on popular music, just in a non-obvious, almost obscured way.
Yet New Radicals’ shelf life has also been surprisingly long. “You Get What You Give” has been in a slew of movies, including 2000’s The Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas and 2004’s Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. In Glee’s season-three finale, outgoing seniors sang it as a goodbye song to the underclassmen, while Savoir Adore covered the song for A.V. Undercover in 2013. The band also has some superstar supporters: Hall & Oates covered “Someday We’ll Know” with Todd Rundgren, and the members of U2 are unabashed fans of Alexander’s work (in fact, Bono was the one who reportedly connected him to Begin Again director John Carney). The band even received Joni Mitchell’s stamp of approval: “The only thing I heard in many years that I thought had greatness in it was the New Radicals,” she told Rolling Stone in 2002. “I loved that song ‘You Get What You Give.’ It was a big hit, and I said, ‘Where did they go?’ It turns out the guy [Gregg Alexander] quit. I thought, ‘Good for him.’ I knew he was my kind of guy”.
Though some might say the New Radicals’ You Get What You Give is a guilty pleasure or a simple one-hit wonder, I think it is a great song. It is still played a lot to this day, and people of all ages have affection and respect for the song – not to mention that it also has a killer chorus! Rather than view it is a secret, guilty pleasure, one should definitely view You Get What You Give as…
A magnificent song.