Who in the hell is Gregg Alexander, and why should I care what ever happened to him? I imagine that's what 99.8% of American readers are thinking at this point. But I'm not just name-checking obscure 1990s pop artists here, nor am I playing hipster's advocate with some obscure genius--this guy is/was actually important in the popular music scene, and you probably do know who he is.

Alexander has had a long career in the music business, most of it spent away from the spotlight. He signed his first record deal with A and M at the tender age of 16, before releasing two ill-fated major-label solo LPs in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But he reached his greatest height of visibility--apparently so much of it that he entered a self-imposed retirement as a performer--as the architect and driving creative force behind the New Radicals, the late-90s pop-rockers whose one and only album, Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too, peaked at #41 on the Billboard 200 back in February 1998. And if you think I wasn't rocking out to the band's hit single, "You Get What You Give," at my 12th birthday party in that very month, you're sorely mistaken. Not only that, but the album's second single, "Someday We'll Know," was one of the sweetest, heartbreaking-est ballads of the 90s. Unfortunately, the pressures of fame and constant touring wore on Alexander, and he disbanded the group early in 1999 to become a full-time songwriter and producer for other artists.

Perhaps contributing to his current near-anonymity was the fact that in almost every interview, music video, concert, and other public appearance with the New Radicals, Alexander wore a bucket hat covering his eyes. However, in spite of his reputation as a pop-music enigma, he has nonetheless earned a reputation as one of "the catchiest, smartest professional mainstream pop songwriter[s] of the early 2000s," claiming songwriting credits on albums by several former Spice Girls, Enrique Iglesias, Hanson, and Ronan Keating. Along the way, he even picked up a Grammy for his troubles, for writing the 2003 Santana-Michelle Branch duet, "Game of Love."