The very first version of The Game of Love according to YouTube video "Top 80 Songs You Didn't Know Were Covers and Their Originals", published on 22 September 2017 by Isianjo

All according to Isianjo's 2017 YouTube video "Top 80 Songs You Didn't Know Were Covers and Their Originals", the Santana featuring Michelle Branch version of The Game of Love was not the first version of the song, the very first version of The Game of Love written by Gregg Alexander and Rick Nowels was recorded as a demo from 1998 to 1999 by New Radicals front-person Gregg Alexander, the man who co-wrote the song with Rick Nowels. This version was unreleased on any music format but has been uploaded on YouTube by many YouTube channels. So really, Santana featuring Michelle Branch actually covered it in 2001 recording it and first released it as a single on 17 September 2002. But the first recording of the song as I will claim now was lately in 2000.

Last edit: 2019-11-04 17:30:46 UTC by Euan Banner

To my knowledge there's really nothing we can do with it if it was unreleased. Typically the only time we add unreleased performances of songs to the site is for performances that debuted in musicals, TV, etc. prior to their first release.

I imagine every relatively recent work was originally recorded as a demo. As for "Game", I believe it was first recorded with Tina Turner, which was eventually released. I didn't look, but we may have already accounted for that....

This is the video I was relevantly on about. The video published on YouTube on 22 September 2017 by Isianjo that stated Gregg Alexander first recorded The Game of Love before Santana featuring Michelle Branch first released it.

As I said, it's fairly common for songwriters to record demos of their work to shop the song around to labels, artists, etc. but those demos are usually of little to no interest here.

Maybe The Game of Love originally recorded as a demonstration by New Radicals member Gregg Alexander might be commercially released in his demo album "Gregg Alexander: Demonstration Recordings".