[Sidebar] The Worcester Phoenix
1999
[The Worcester Phoenix]
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Best National Pop/Rock Act

Goo Goo Dolls

Goo Goo Dolls A tidbit of Wormtown rock history: the Goo's played the Rick's Cafe basement some 10-plus years ago in front of a lucky handful of fans. And they were indeed lucky; the band were pure, high-energy, pop-punk, and sloppy rock and roll. They seemed a sure bet to wrestle the crown from the Replacements (their chief influence) as the Last Great American Rock-and-Roll Band. They were smart, fun, ballsy, and guaranteed to go nowhere fast.

Cut to LA, 1995, and a free-thinking deejay at KROQ thinks to play the B-side cut "Name," from the Goo Goos' ready-for-last-rites disc A Boy Named Goo. You would think it was a great one-hit-wonder story, a funny footnote for a band known to stomp-ass live but who would be remembered for a sensitive balled. Adios Goo Goos . . .

Except they didn't go away. They fired a second shot over the bow of an unsuspecting public with the just-as-syrupy "Iris"; and they became bona fide superstars. Grammy nomination, MTV Award nomination, the Rolling Stones tour -- the boys from the wrong side of the tracks in Buffalo waved bye-bye to their indie/alt past. They now stand as the greatest commercial band to root for since Cheap Trick began unscrewing heads two decades ago. And that's cuz, just like the Tricksters, the Goo Goo Dolls are still the same smart, fun, and ballsy band they were before. Instead of a twentysomething, drunk-guy fanbase, the Upstate New York Dolls have added a legion of nubile, young chicks to their ranks. If that's a sell-out, where do we sign up?

Johnny Rzenik still writes the same hook-filled, buzz bombs that, at this point in his career, would make former-chief-architect Paul Westerberg more than a little jealous.

It comes down to one simple idea -- honesty. The Goos, a little older, but not that much more mellow, have (while fooling an entire nation in the process) stayed true.


-- John O'Neill


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