Michelle Branch, Gregg Alexander Reimagine ‘The Game of Love’

Michelle Branch is revisiting one of the biggest songs of her career — with the songwriter who helped make it happen.

Branch has reunited with New Radicals frontman Gregg Alexander for a newly reimagined version of “The Game of Love,” the 2002 smash hit originally written and produced by Alexander and famously recorded by Branch for Santana’s Supernatural album. The new recording marks the pair’s first collaboration since the song’s original release more than two decades ago.

More from Spin:

• Beck Hitches A ‘Ride’ To New Album
• The Shins’ James Mercer Pens Debut Children’s Book
• David Bowie’s 1965 Shel Talmy Sessions Get Boxed

The single serves as the first preview of Everywhere and Back Again, Branch’s new EP due Nov. 6 via BMG. Celebrating the 25th anniversary of her career, the project reimagines songs from across her catalog with a lineup of friend and special guests, recasting tracks she first wrote as a teenager through new collaborations. Among the songs set for fresh interpretations are “Everywhere,” “All You Wanted,” “Goodbye to You” and “Breathe,” with additional guest artists to be announced.

“Getting to hear these songs, many I wrote as a teenager, performed by friends and peers that I so greatly admire has been such a ‘pinch me’ moment as a songwriter,” Branch says. “Suddenly these adolescent songs about love lost and found take on an entirely new meaning and weight when sung by artists of all different genres and in a different era. Being able to celebrate a 25-year career while firmly believing my best work is still ahead of me is the dream of any artist.”

For Branch, revisiting “The Game of Love” carries particular significance. “Many people don’t realize that Gregg wrote ‘The Game of Love’ and being able to sing this together with him is really a full-circle moment and captures the original spirit of the demo,” she notes.

Alexander recalls how the collaboration first came together, explaining that after late Arista Records executive Clive Davis unsuccessfully tried versions of the song with Tina Turner and Macy Gray, he suggested the then-19-year-old Branch after learning she had been performing New Radicals’ “You Get What You Give” on tour.

“When 19-year-old Michelle waltzed in delivering a jaw-dropping one-take vocal, we won a Grammy a year later,” Alexander says. “New Radicals and Michelle recently raised the mix faders at NYC’s Hit Factory with both our 2001 and 2026 vocals side by side. This record is dedicated to Clive. So let’s turn this motherfucker up and dance like no one’s watching!”

Branch unveiled the project July 14 during a one-night-only event at the Sun Rose in West Hollywood dubbed MBTV Presents: Everywhere and Back Again – Live in Front of a Studio Audience, a livestream inspired by the MTV and TRL era that launched her career. Hosted by former MTV VJ Damien Fahey, the event featured live performances of “All You Wanted,” “Breathe” and “Everywhere,” along with the premiere of a snippet of the new “The Game of Love.”

Branch also announced the Everywhere and Back Again Tour, which begins Sept. 27 in Seattle. Click here for details.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.