Goo Goo Dolls - Miracle Pill
The Goo Goo Dolls have always just written good music for people who cared only that the music was good
One of the most remarkable things about the Goo Goo Dolls is their steadfast consistency amongst the ever-changing backdrop of popular music. Six years ago when they released Magnetic, I wrote that the band remained unchanged in the face of their supposed "waning popularity" in the eyes of pop culture and radio charts. It's true that many of their contemporaries that made it big alongside them in the late 1990s are long gone, but for the Goos, they've quietly continued to be above everything else, themselves, just older, wiser, and continuingly more refined. Miracle Pill is their 12th studio album and is the natural progression from 2016's Boxes. Like their previous release, Miracle Pill continues their musical evolution away from alternative rock to the more serene territory of adult contemporary. Sure, it may sound like a bad thing, but like everything the Goos have done over the past 25 years, it's supremely confident and composed.
They may not write songs with the caustic bite like "Here Is Gone" anymore, but they have been finding comfort in the more introspective pop-strewn melodies found in songs like "Lights". Similarly, in the new album's lead single and title track, the Goos tap into bouncy, easy-to-digest pop empowerment. Songs like "Indestructible" show that the band haven't put down their guitars just yet, constructing songs that are still fond of their alternative rock roots but have found comfort in grander, more expansive sounds.
The album's best moments are when the Goo Goo Dolls unashamedly tug on the heartstrings like they've done so many times before. The quiet jangly nature of "Over You" does this particularly well, while the bigger, electronic-infused arena rock of "Lost" shows that this type of music is just done extremely poorly by bands like Imagine Dragons. "Autumn Leaves" is a throwback to the kind of songs found on Let Love In and Dizzy Up The Girl, sounding organic and wistful, while the closing of "Think It Over" is the kind of song they've been hinting at since Something For The Rest Of Us. It's part quintessential Goos, but contemporary and timeless at the same time.
Credit to the Robby Takac songs of the album too- "Step In Line", "Life's a Message"- both some of the finest songs Takac has written. He is often cast in the shadow of John Rzeznik's more recognizable sound, but on Miracle Pill, his work is the best its sounded since Dizzy.
The Ringer recently wrote a piece titled 'The Goo Goo Dolls Were Never the Cool Kids, but They’re Still Standing'. I echoed these sentiments in that Magnetic review years ago, but if there was anything long time Goo Goo Dolls fans know is that the band were never concerned about popularity or being "cool". The problem with being cool in music is that it fades. The Goo Goo Dolls have always just written good music for people who cared only that the music was good. Not much has changed in that sense, and really, that's much better than being cool.
(Warner Bros.)