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Rating: The Goo Goo Dolls started as a classic American punk-rock band.
John Rzeznik and his crew released their first album, 'Jed', back in 1989, highlighting tense and heavily rhythmic sounds that gradually allowed the band to conquer the New York underground scene and then the American one.
Their aggressive and somewhat unrefined style filled stadiums and squares with die-hard fans, but it couldn't earn the 'Sticky Dolls' global recognition, extra-continental success, the big leap, and consequently heaps of money—things our band likely yearned for ardently, to the point that one day they decided to abandon their history in favor of a genre much more universally appreciable and simple, catchier if you will...in short, more commercial, ultimately embarking on a clear and grotesque change of style.
Slowly but surely (perhaps as early as 'A Boy Named Goo' in 1995), the band began to show signs of increasing and marked musical relaxation; the songs became less rhythmic and everything took on a damn catchy flavor: gradually, in John Rzeznik's hands, the acoustic guitar replaced the electric, leading to a change in sound. But the transformation of the Goo Goo Dolls was finally completed (so to speak) in 1998 with the famous 'Dizzy Up The Girl', which, along with subsequent albums, would establish the band on the long-desired global stages; they would be, for a time, the kings of globalized music and conquer the world with songs like "Iris", "Slide", "Here Is Gone", tracks that, in their musical simplicity, are far from rubbish, as they are entertaining, emotional, gentle. But the Goo Goo Dolls are no longer the same.
On July 4, 2004, to celebrate Independence Day, a mega concert by our band is scheduled in Buffalo, which will be fully recorded and released complete with a DVD. The sight under the stage is impressive as in the old days; everything seems unchanged. However, in reality, even the sea of fans is not the same anymore, except perhaps for a few exceptions, some old loyalists. And it couldn't be otherwise: time has changed everything. If one expects to be catapulted into a lively environment, with very high rhythms, shouting and assertive voices, and aggressive, hard, or distorted music, they will be disappointed and bewildered. In fact, all the recent biggest hits are respectfully re-proposed and played, from "Big Machine" to "Slide", and several other slow, catchy songs that create that simple and appreciated melancholic, pseudo-sentimental, and romantic atmosphere typical of pop-rock love ballads, in which the Goo Goo Dolls are now specialized, and which always receive loud applause and screams from thrilled fans who sing at the top of their lungs, so much so that often John’s nice voice gives way to the audience's choruses (and the audio quality of the record suffers as a result).
Every now and then, however, the Goo Goo Dolls throw in some old-school pieces, taking up the dusty and neglected electric guitar and cheerfully offering songs like "January Friend", "Smash", and "Tucked Away", sung by bassist Robby Takac, with a much hoarser and distorted voice, but especially the vital and angry "Cuz You're Gone", aggravated by John’s shout and his electric guitar, almost wanting to say to the fans: "Listen up, once we were this! We haven't forgotten and you should remember it too!" But the tracks that the audience loves are entirely different. So it concludes in grand style with "Broadway" in a beautiful live version, a song that with its melancholic notes lets you get lost in the bewilderment contained within the lyrics; and then the ballad "Iris", very catchy but not therefore a trivial flagship of the new Goo Goo Dolls. The final farewell is entrusted to "Give A Little Bit", previously presented as track number 1 in the studio version, a piece that will be included in the subsequent album.
In essence, the Goo Goo Dolls are a band that after ten years of career and five albums of good style, having done what they were naturally called to do, have changed their face, giving birth to much more easily and superficially appreciable music, and precisely for this reason, more banal, filling their pockets and betraying their old fans. Their unassuming, romantic, and acoustic songs retain a certain artistic and sentimental dignity, able to create a pleasant atmosphere, but now they are nothing more than tunes good for every occasion, without many pretensions, aimed at the broadest audience in the world, those who settle for what the TV plays. In the beginning, they were nobodies nobody knew, but they were a peculiar group with their own small and unique characteristics. Now they are filthy rich and everyone knows them, but they are nothing more, nothing else but a drop in the ocean of music, the same or too similar to many others.
Few will remember them.
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