New Radicals Drop First Song in 28 Years, Plan Comeback Album
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- New Radicals released "One Night Only (Break Loose Break Free!)" last Friday without warning — their first new song in 28 years, written and recorded as the title track for Will Gluck's newly released rom-com "One Night Only."
- Gregg Alexander confirmed the group is working on sophomore album "Maybe You've Been Brainwashed TWO (THE Heathen Will 'Con$pirituality' TROLL)," currently without a release date, which he said explores the intersections of organized religion, politics, and social media.
- New Radicals teamed with Michelle Branch last month to rerecord her 2002 hit "The Game of Love" — which Alexander originally wrote and filtered through Tina Turner and Macy Gray — and the version debuted on the Billboard Adult Pop Airplay chart last week.
- Alexander learned of Clive Davis's death while traveling from Prague to New York to surprise Davis with the new "Game of Love" recording, paying tribute to Davis as "a champion of music and artist rights."
- Alexander was recently credited as co-writer on the Strokes' "Going to Babble On" from their new album "Reality Awaits," a song he wrote with Julian Casablancas five years ago.
- An AI rendition of New Radicals' "You Get What You Give" aired before the Super Bowl and during an Olympic figure skating routine in February, which Alexander chalked up to "indifference at a leadership level."
Why it matters: New Radicals' 1998 debut has cycled through covers and placements for years, but the simultaneous arrival of a new song, a sophomore album in gestation, and unauthorized AI use of their catalog at major sporting events shows the band is both more culturally relevant and more legally vulnerable than at any point since disbanding — and Alexander is choosing to lean back in rather than retreat further.
