New Radicals only had one hit, and it was big enough to become the textbook definition of a "one-hit wonder." After 1998's "You Get What You Give" took off, the band broke up the following year, and frontman Gregg Alexander put away his signature bucket hat and disappeared behind the scenes. That disappearance lasted almost 28 years.
But he never really vanished — he just changed positions. Nearly every song he wrote for other artists during those years ended up bigger than anything New Radicals put out themselves: Sophie Ellis-Bextor's "Murder on the Dancefloor," Adam Levine's Oscar-nominated "Lost Stars," and Santana and Michelle Branch's "Game of Love." A band that broke up, retreated behind the curtain, and still had the whole world singing along to voices that weren't his own — that's a story more interesting than any comeback campaign.
Only now has Gregg Alexander let New Radicals speak again under their own name. The new track "One Night Only (Break Loose Break Free!)" is the theme song he wrote for the romantic comedy One Night Only, starring Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner, which opens this week. This isn't an album comeback, and it barely counts as a "return" — it's more like he simply lent the band's name to a movie.
New Radicals have actually stirred a few times in recent years. In 2021, they reunited for a performance at President Biden's inauguration. In 2024, they came together again to personally record a version of "Murder on the Dancefloor" — a song Alexander originally wrote for Sophie Ellis-Bextor — this time reinterpreting it themselves and dedicating the version to then–Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, who had used the song as his walk-on music at campaign events. That same reunion spirit carried over to "Game of Love": Michelle Branch recently brought New Radicals back in to re-record the track Alexander had written for her and Santana all those years ago.
Rather than calling it a comeback after 28 years of silence, the more accurate picture might be this: New Radicals never really left. It's just that this time, the man who wrote the songs finally kept one for himself.
