Music, Politics and Consumer Electronics
The hardware of home entertainment is cold and lifeless until it delivers music that is soulful and memorable. Similarly, the product review that integrates a particular recording in the context of a black box elevates the prose and brings meaning to what personal entertainment is all about.
Two decades ago, for an early issue of Sound & Vision Magazine, I reviewed the AudioRequest ARQ1, a first-of-a-kind stereo component that attached directly to your system and enabled you to rip CDs and store them on its internal hard drive. It relied on a remote control and built-in screen. Notably, it did not require a computer or a network.
What made the review of the product from ReQuest Multimedia, a start-up in Troy, NY, come alive was that I used it to rip the last CD I’d purchased, Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too by the New Radicals. The album’s standout song, “You Get What You Give,” had all the markings of an anthem, uplifting and with lyrics that went to the heart of the dreams of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students who helped found the company.
“We got the dreamers disease,” the song decreed. Then, there was another lyric custom-made for the mass storage device in the ARQ1: “You’ve got the music in you.”
As it so happened, the New Radicals became a one-hit wonder. And the category of popularly-priced music servers didn’t last much longer. Within a few years, such servers had moved to the high end while the rest of us relied on hard drives in our pockets (the original iPod), home-networked computers, and, eventually, music streamed from the cloud — no local storage needed.
But it turned out I wasn’t the only one listening to the New Radicals at the end of the millennium. So was Beau Biden. Lyrics to “You Get What You Give” were recited at the President’s son’s funeral in 2015. Later, the lyrics appeared in Joe Biden’s book. The song became a kind of Biden-family theme song. [It was right up there with “Don’t Stop” Thinking About Tomorrow (Fleetwood Mac) for Bill Clinton and “Y.M.C.A.” and “Macho Man” (Village People), the latter being a gay anthem co-opted by the irony-impervious Donald Trump.]
The New Radicals broke up in 1999 and over the years have turned down all offers to reunite — until this month. Shortly before the inauguration, New Radicals front-man Gregg Alexander finally got an offer he couldn’t let go. The Biden-Harris administration asked him and the band to play “You Get What You Give” at their virtual “Parade Across America.”
