ONE HIT WONDERLAND: "You Get What You Give" by New Radicals

Okay, you need to freaking chill.

Michael

1 more 4 the record: FYI: Your beloved greggy "alexander" Aiuto & Rick Nowels, are full blown plagiarists (i.e. bullsh!t ripoff "artists"/ cheats/ thieves/ sociopathalogical liars/ frauds) of the lowliest order. They ruthlessly plagiarized the entirety of the music and most of the melody of this "Get What You Give" song from legitimate songwriters/musicians down in Austin, TX back in November of 1997 and have been lying all up in yalls faces for 21 years... For all the 3vil details: https://mleonardtyson.tumblr.com/post/182711615257/feb-2014-fyi-your-beloved-greggy-alexander #greggalexander #ricknowels #Hammer #Burn #checkandmate

That's the thing. "You Get What You Give" always sounded to me (I'm Irish) like something from the UK, and really England specifically. Now, first: *other* tracks on /Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too/ remind Todd of the Stone Roses. Second, Alexander's songs for others have apparently been successful in the UK. Finally, just look at what he's wearing in the video: pretty close to the "baggy" style associated with the Stone Roses and other baggy/Madchester acts and their fans. The bucket hat is even a bit of a trademark of the Stone Roses' drummer Reni as well as being a common part of the look. So, my hunch is that "You Get What You Give" was probably conceived of as something like an early-'90s baggy-ish UK song early on, then lost its groove-heaviness and became a bit more of a conventionally-crafted song on the way to being made the radio-friendly designated single. Early Blur's "There's No Other Way" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJzCYSdrHMI has a certain resemblance to it.

Leo Comerford

Honestly, the only thing that sticks to my mind about "Mother We Just Can't Get Enough" isn't that it was in A Walk to Remember. It's Danielle Brisebois shouting out "Make my nipples hard. Let's go!" before the song starts. Blew my early 2000s mind away. Excellent video!

Brent Nycz

(also, the episode is great, of course!)

Matt Keeley

(OK i feel less worried about not getting a notification for this one—at first i thought it might have been a re-upload of an old one I'd just somehow'd never seen. Was obvious quickly it was indeed new though.) But yeah, I've just never got the love for this track. But it's still interesting. And while I don't really like anything else I'd heard by him, the examples, that Sophie Ellis-Bextor song is indeed undeniably awesome.

Matt Keeley

Outstanding, yet somehow didn't get a notification. Just catching it on YouTube now. I wanted this one for years, and as always, you rise to the occasion.

MPG1989

I don't think i ever got a notification for this.

Josh Spicer

Just drive by posting to reaffirm why your THE man people should value for musical evaluation. As the youngins may suggest this track indeed still slaps. 90's rebel till the end of days signing off.

Christian Thomas

it's wild to me that The Edge loved this song so much, because until you made this video I genuinely thought this was a U2 song

violet aisling

One of my top 10 favorite songs of all time. It's perfect.

Keith Badje

yeah, same here actually!

surasshu

I never got an email notification for this.

This song was inserted into the second live-action Scooby Doo movie back in 2005, for some reason (it was used for like 10 seconds in a flashback scene). That movie's entire soundtrack is a weird mix of turn-of-the-millennium pop and mid-2000s rap/hip-hop, and very little of it works well.

As for his early solo stuff...yikes. I'm sure Everlast now feels much better about "I Got The Knack."

Kristopher Bluth

This is sort of like "Closing Time": one of those songs I feel like I'm supposed to like and just don't. As beautifully constructed as it obviously is, I just can't overcome the trying-way-too-hard-to-be-a-voice-of-a-generation lyrics (not to mention that godawful video. ) I remember liking "I Hope I Didn't Just GIve Away The Ending", though.

Kristopher Bluth

I didn't pay much attention to cool or mainstream music in the late 90s, so not being a huge hit I don't have any memory of this song at the time. But in the past 5 years I seem to hear it all the time. And deservedly so.

Joe G

This is one of my favorite songs!!! It usually ends up in my playlists, lol. Especially when I'm bored at work. It's a good Jumpstart of a song

Syl W

TBH I feel like people should try and go for more of whatever this sort of thing is categorized as. Like it is sort of a a twisted bitter but not exactly dark humor that would go really good with the current news cycle that is a miserable hell but endless sad music isn't really helpful either. I was talking to a friend recently ans she said something about "we weren't talking about climate change" much in the 90s, so I said... "the ice we skate, is getting pretty thin, the water's getting warm so we might as well swim, that's the way I like it and I never get bored." Like that is some good snark.

Katastrophe

Billboard completely revised their methodology in December '98 so I think the New Radicals just barely miss having that as an excuse. It does mean that between '95 and '98 the charts are totally inaccurate

Todd in the Shadows

I cannot possibly understate how MASSIVELY POPULAR the Mandy Moore version of 'Someday We'll Know' was in the Philippines. I never actively sought out the song, but I feel like I know every word entirely due to radio overplay here in the early 2000's (and also cause the lyrics are very memorable). To this day, I still occasionally hear it on the soft rock radio station at work, certainly more so than any other teenybopper hit at the time. A surefire way to get a roomful of English-speaking Filipinos of varying ages to sing along to the chorus of a single song is to perform this at karaoke night. I'm honestly surprised it wasn't a monster hit in America.

Franco del Rosario

Charming episode, Todd's enthusiasm really shines through here :)

Kathrin Shawcross

I can honestly say this song got me through middle school around 10 years ago. It might just be in my all time top 10. Also, I feel like the low chart position was because this was around the time Billboard was doing some weird things with the charts at the time to decide what actually constitutes a hit. For example, “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia only peaked at 42 even though that was a pretty massive hit.

Tanner McGuire

Man, I loved this song!

Sofia Ciel

I love this song! Hope you have good things to say

oh my god i hadn't thought about sophie ellis-bextor in a while. i remember loving her stuff, it seems gregg alexander had a big hand in it, including production credits!

surasshu

Oh boy, I absolutely adore "You Get What You Give"! Like you, it was one of my favorite songs at a time when I was just discovering popular music on a broad level. I definitely think it's interesting how many of Gregg's post-New Radicals songs were huge hits in the UK but not America. In my opinion, the US was horribly robbed of good music throughout the Bush years. "Murder on the Dance Floor" not blowing up here is pretty heinous. Speaking of pop acts primarily famous in Britain but not America, it's pretty hilarious S Club 7 weren't the only pop group openly mocking Hanson that year; weird too how S Club 7 and New Radicals were complete opposites in their cultural philosophies, yet similarly uplifting with their late '90s optimism.

Jacqueline Sailer

I'm really surprised by how well that dance cover at the end works

Gordon Stearns

Argh, I love it when this series gives me a name and band for a song Ive always heard, but never thought about enough to realise how much I like it

Tim Bates

okay i did not even NOTICE "the world we love so much" as heard on rivers cuomo of weezer's home recordings album was a cover ??? it's right there as the last track on gregg alexander's first album! holy crap! rivers also definitely has that "you know it was written by him" quality to his songwriting work . and honestly....i always loved this ridiculous song

Saffron C

I love this song, but I never realized the people behind it had such an interesting story. Definitely gonna check out that New Radicals album now. Great episode, thanks!

J. Francis

Yeah that or Tag Team(they're the guys who did "Whoomp, There it Is!")

RedBedroomRecords

That 70s MOR Rock comparison you made is exactly how I feel about You Get What You Give. When I started listening to it, I kept thinking about how this song musically could have easily existed as early as the 70s. It’s one of those songs that’s both of its time but timeless all the same.

Slight correction, Portable Life actually DID eventually come out in 2008:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r07IOxe1s8k

RedBedroomRecords

I got their CD at a local thrift store once and it’s so good! I’m so glad you got to cover this track since it’s one of the best pop jams of all time!

Gregg Alexander also has some cool demos on Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A4U6U2RCLo&list=PLPLMOCYuQ0GxocN0wwr9evxlrL874bnFD&index=2&t=0s

RedBedroomRecords

Sometime around the mid-2000's, our local CD shop was about to go out of business, so we decided to buy as many weird out there CDs as we could, the New Radicals CD being one of them. That being said, I think the album is terrible. But even before that, I clearly remember this song and it's follow up single, which got more airplay in countries like Australia because of how high 'You get what you give' was compared to America. Also, despite going on Greg Alexander's Wikipedia page every now and then when I listen to this song and did not know he wrote 'Life is a Rollercoaster' or 'Murder on the Dance floor', which might be even bigger nostalgia bombs then 'You get what you give'. Anyway, great episode.

i've honestly never heard of this song before, but it sounds decent enough, better then a lot of male pop acts that are popular today for sure. Gregg's first album can actually very easily be found on Youtube.

RedBedroomRecords

I was in a Burger King, of all places, when this song played and it gradually started to dawn on me that this was one of the greatest pop songs of all time. Really, the only way you can counterbalance this is for your next OHW to be something dumb like, I dunno, Ram Jam or something.

maruhkati

This is legit one of my favorite songs of all time, so glad you're finally covering it.

Gemini Man

This absolutely would be a song I would have suggested if given the opportunity, so I'm happy to see you cover it!

Raccaroon