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 Keep It Simple
Van Morrison
Roger McGuinn @ the Huntington IMAC, Long Island, NY - April 4, 2008
Emily Saxe @ the Allen Room/Jazz at Lincoln Center - April 5, 2008
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Get Awkward
Paul McCartney – The McCartney Years (DVD)
Juno – Music from the Motion Picture
Various Artists
Yes - Their Definitive Story
Day and Night Driving
Seven Mary Three
InterMedia Arts Center 2/2/08
Huntington, NY
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New Radicals
Well, it was nice while it lasted. After launching what seemed to be a promising career, with media attention, critical praise, a good album and a loopy, infectious top 40 single, word was dropped that the New Radicals are no longer to be; maybe some bands want to be one-hit wonders. With Gregg Alexander, that presumably is the case. For all intents and purposes, New Radicals was simply the name that Alexander chose for a musical project where he wrote all of the material, found suitable musicians, then produced and arranged everything to his liking. The result was a project that resembled Karl Wallinger’s World Party (remember “Ship of Fools”?) for its single-minded vision and anything-goes aesthetic, sung and produced in a manner that suggested the most accessible work of Todd Rundgren’s younger days.
“Wake up kids, we’ve got the dreamer’s disease
Age fourteen, they got you down on your knees”
“You Get What You Give” is the type of undeniable hit single that salvages commercial radio’s tarnished reputation. The simple, king-sized guitar riff that opens the song practically forces you to stop and notice, and there isn’t a pop station in the country that could deny such an airwave-friendly melody. What makes this so insidious is the song’s subject matter, which takes potshots at the very same media that supports it. In essence, “You Get What You Give” is Alexander’s way of providing an identity anthem for a generation of teenagers whose identity was being manufactured for them by a manipulative media populated with control freaks and pre-packaged ‘stars’ (so what else is new?).
“…Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson,
You’re all fakes, run to your mansions…”
Hearing Alexander mock pop icons on commercial radio is like hearing a TV evangelist tell you to put down the checkbook and turn off the television. The lyrics point out the hypocrisy of stars who become wealthy by selling their images as prototypes for an alternative style. Of course, its presentation on pop radio meant that the very essence of the song itself could be deemed as hypocritical. After all, here was a commercial single that condemns commerciality because it generates hypocrisy as an unavoidable side effect. Once “You Get What You Give” became a hit, it trapped Alexander in his own accusatory net, because any type of follow-up would require him to ‘package’ his image in some user-friendly category. If he meant what he said, how could he go on? What could be more hypocritical than accusing someone of hypocrisy while subsequently doing the same thing? Like a self-aware Philistine, Alexander threw the first stone, then walked away. In a classy maneuver, one without fanfare that should at least earn him respect for honoring his own convictions, Alexander made his point, then announced the end of New Radicals.
“You’re gonna get what you give,
Just don’t be afraid to leave”
 
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