Latest Release
- 2 FEB 2024
- 1 Song
- City of Angels (Music from the Motion Picture) · 1998
- Magnetic (Deluxe Version) · 2013
- Beautiful Lie - Single · 2024
- Who's Gonna Hear Their Wish? - Single · 2023
- Live at The Academy, New York City, 1995 · 2023
- Live at The Academy, New York City, 1995 · 2023
- Live at The Academy, New York City, 1995 · 2023
- Run All Night - Single · 2023
- I Won't Back Down - Single · 2023
- Superstar (Remix) - Single · 2022
Essential Albums
- It took five albums for the Goo Goo Dolls to break into the mainstream – but once they did, the results were spectacular. The scrappy Buffalo trio turned A Boy Named Goo (1995) into a tour-de-force of working class frustration, wounded idealism and hard-won grace. Remarkably, the band took a steady-eyed shot at big-time success without compromising its underlying bash-and-thrash ethic and hit the jackpot on its own terms. Singer/guitarist John Rzeznik applies his raw-throated yowl to the best set of shout-along pop/rockers of the band’s career, wringing spasms of feeling out of “Long Down,” “Only One” and similar hard-pop tunes. Bassist Robby Takac’s less-abrasive vocals lend “Burnin’ Up” and “Somethin’ Bad” a touch of honey to balance the sonic vinegar. The band careens its way through anthemic ballads like “Ain’t That Unusual” and nicely nasty rockers like “Slave Girl” with roughneck delight. The throbbing heart of the album is “Name,” a melancholy rock aria sung by Rzeznik with hit-making bravura. A Boy Named Goo seethes with the sort of brazen yet naïve ambition that only a gang of street punks could muster, resulting in an unexpected commercial and artistic triumph.
Artist Playlists
- The one-time brash rockers go for a walk on the lighter side.
- Vibrant documentation of the ’90s and 2000s hitmakers’ live sound.
Live Albums
Compilations
More To Hear
- Mark gets festive with a playlist full of yuletide cheer.
- Pale Waves pick the 5 Best Songs on Apple Music.
About The Goo Goo Dolls
The ‘90s saw many alternative rock bands take tentative toe-dips into Top 40 pop, but none made as dramatic and extreme a leap from the left to the right side of the dial as The Goo Goo Dolls. In their late-’80s infancy, the Buffalo natives were a ragtag power trio flexing enough hardcore heft to get them signed to heavy-music imprint Metal Blade. But as irreverent bassist/singer Robby Takac began to cede lead vocal duties to the band’s resident rugged romantic, guitarist Johnny Rzeznik, their sound settled into a more tuneful style of punky power pop. Once the band scored their first hit single in 1995 with the wistful, Westerbergian serenade “Name”, The Goo Goo Dolls became a bellwether for a new strain of post-grunge, adult-contemporary rock that reached its zenith with 1998’s string-swept power ballad “Iris”—at which point the group seemed less like a replacement for The Replacements than a big-brother act to emergent TRL phenoms like Matchbox 20 and Third Eye Blind. And they’ve continued to finesse that formula into the 21st century, cementing their rarefied position as the only band that started out playing punk dives with The Dead Milkmen and ended up headlining amphitheaters with Daughtry.
- ORIGIN
- Buffalo, NY, United States
- FORMED
- 1986
- GENRE
- Rock