YMMV / New Radicals

• Audience-Alienating Era: Not the band proper, but Gregg's pre-New Radicals solo album Intoxifornication is...definitely something. The title alone is a pretty good indication of what you're in for. This is one of the singles, "The Truth," a curious mismatch of gimmicky lyrics, 90s alt-rock, 80s drum machines, and Gregg oversinging almost every lyric. It's a pretty impressive swing and a miss for a major label release. That being said, it's not without a certain kind of appeal. Maybe Todd in the Shadows said it best:
  Todd: What if Beck thought he was Jim Morrison? Well, now you know.
• Awesome Music:
  • "You Get What You Give." It's not compared to Todd Rundgren for nothing. Furthermore, AV Club described it as a "secretly influential" song that is "both a nostalgic artifact and a song that transcends any era".
  • Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too as a whole still has a fandom for its strong songwriting and big pop hooks. The breezy "Technicolor Lover" and moving ballads like "Someday We'll Know" and "Crying Like A Church On Monday" are standouts. The album hasn't aged a day since its release.
• Covered Up: The band didn't last long enough for their version of "Someday We'll Know" to chart. As such, Mandy Moore and Jon Foreman's version for the A Walk to Remember soundtrack is typically more well known. After both Hall & Oates and America did their respective versions, it became an adult contemporary standard.
• Cult Classic: Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too, a testament to the talents of a band who were gone just as quickly as they came. Gregg Alexander himself has become kind of a minor cult figure by proxy.
• Suspiciously Similar Song
  • Santana and Michelle Branch's "Game of Love," also penned by Gregg Alexander, not surprisingly bears some resemblance to "You Get What You Give." Ironically, despite the latter becoming a much bigger hit on the charts (#5 to #36), the former is the better remembered song today. (Not that it's forgotten, you'll still hear it in grocery stores)
  • The chorus of "Someday We'll Know," despite being in a different key and with different chords, has a similar lyrical rhythm to Patti Smith's "Because The Night."
• Tear Jerker: Half of the band's one album.
  • "Someday We'll Know" is particularly noticeable, but the postscript in the liner notes offers a happy ending.
  • "Crying Like A Church On Monday" more than lives up to its title - a ballad that Gregg sings like he's all alone in that church, so no one can hear him wailing.
  • The band's history itself counts. The fact that they were meant to be a revolutionary band that would avoid the negativity common in rock music of the time and discuss sociopolitical issues that other music artists of the time weren't discussing or were weaponizing for their own gain, only for them to end up a One-Hit Wonder all because of media attention surrounding the celebrity-bashing closing lyrics for their one hit and ultimately dissolve without ever releasing another album. Not helping was Gregg Alexander growing tired of touring and the rock star life. This proves to be more upsetting with the very turbulent sociopolitical landscape of not only the decade that followed (the 2000s), but the mid-to-late-2010s as well.