The Goo Goo Dolls Road To Success

NewsJanuary 26, 2010Unknown source

Who can forget the Goo Goo Dolls, if not for the name? While the band isn’t as mainstream as they were in the 90s, many of their songs still live on with great success.

The Goo Goo Dolls may have been most successful in the 90s but the band was actually formed in 1986 in Buffalo, New York by musicians John Rzeznik and Robby Takac. While the band was originally called The Sex Maggots, on a whim it was later changed to The Goo Goo Dolls, a term pulled from an ad in a True Detective magazine.

Peforming small gigs as any new band does, the group was finally picked up by a small record label, Celluloid. As their popularity grew, the larger record company Metal Blade signed them and began helping the band tour. The band struggled to find their own sound in the early 90s being compared to The Replacements. In 1993 they released Superstar Car Wash, which received significant media attention. Metal Blade Records increased their budget, which gave them more publicity, which followed with more playtime on college radio stations.

In 1995 the band released its fifth album, “A Boy Named Goo” and simultaneously replaced George Tutuska with Mike Malnin. The album became the first in the recording label’s history to receive a double-platinum status. As many bands who find quick success discover, their recording company wasn’t paying what the band felt they deserved. The band filed a suit against Metal Blade and the two parties reached a settlement that resulted in a resigning of the band to Metal Blade’s distributing label Warner Brother Records. Under the new label, The Goo Goo Dolls released their sixth album “Dizzy Up The Girl” in 1998. The success of the band’s song “Name” helped push the band into further popularity. Band leader Rzeznik was approached by producers of the film City of Angels to write a song for their soundtrack. Writing “Iris” in just under five minutes, the song propelled the band to stardom. Iris stayed on top of Billboard Hot 100 Airplay charts for 18 weeks and was nominated for three Grammys that year. When the album Dizzy Up the Girl was released, it would contain some of the group’s major hits including Iris, Slide, Black Balloon, Broadway and Dizzy. The album marked the height of The Goo Goo Dolls success.

In 2001 the band released a compilition CD “What I learned About Ego, Opinion, Art and Commerce, followed in 2002 by Gutterflower. Gutterflower achieved gold certification with hits “Here is Gone”, “Sympathy” and “Big Machine”.

Moving into the new millineum, The Goo Goo Dolls marked their 20th anniversary with their new album “Let Love In” which included songs “Give A Little Bit”, “Better Days”, “Stay With You” and “Let Love In”. The group hit a record 12 Top 10 hits in Adult Top 40 history beating Matchbox Twenty and Sheryl Crow.

Presently, The Goo Goo Dolls are working on new music and still touring around the world. In August of 2009 Robby Takak stated that the recording for their new album had been putting the finishing touches on their new album “Something for the Rest of Us”. The album is to be released in mid-February 2010.

[source]http://977music.com/blog/2010/01/the-goo-goo-dolls-road-to-success/[/source]