Sometimes you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to create new music. Many feel that you must always have something new to bring to the table to technically have “good music”. Though I can see from a music journalist perspective that this is somewhat of a true statement, I don’t necessarily believe every single album a band produces together always has to do that for every album. Sometimes, it’s OK not to change your sound if that is what you are comfortable with. Change comes with experiences and with those experiences comes a catalyst to provoke that change. This is not something that dramatically occurs when an artist wants it to and I feel that is what fans need to understand about music. An artist's sound is not going to change just because the fans will it so.
The Goo Goo Dolls have been around for a long time, have stood the test of time and have proven that you don’t always need to push the envelope to create great music. Goo Goo Dolls' "Boxes" seems to add a bit of a new style while still retaining the sound that fans have come to love. “Over and Over,” “Souls in the Machine” and “The Pin” are pretty distinct nods to their older style of writing while still incorporating a lot of techniques of other popular music. I don’t see this as being a bad thing, as I don’t see anything wrong with taking inspiration from newer styles of music. Yes, the music they are creating now will always be a far cry from the Goo Goo Dolls of old, but to say that they have completely abandoned their sound is a little unfair and albeit a little selfish to say of a band that has been around for over 30 years. They have grown with time, as many of us do, and so we are not going to get the same sound nor the same subjects from the past. Johnny even told me in a past interview that “It has never been about selling out. We make music our career and care about all of our fans, but this doesn’t mean that we can’t grow and change our sound.”
"Magnetic" got a lot of flak for being too close to what some would call “corporate sound” and sounding “too happy”. However, from actually personally speaking to them a few years back, Johnny said it was a happy time in their lives and they merely wanted to express that sound in their record. This album seems to have changed leaps and bounds from "Magnetic," seemingly keying on the theme of being boxed in situations and the willingness to move on from memories or experiences of the things that keep us closed in. Tracks like "Over and Over," "Souls in a Machine," "Free of Me," "Flood," and "Reverse," talk of issues that seem to have had effects on the person, thus it becomes a message of trying to surpass impossible odds and it being hard to do so. So, for all that have to say that the Goo Goo Dolls have given themselves to the “corporate” greed style of music, listen to this album and you will most likely eat your words. The Goo Goo Dolls seemed to have not only thematically tied the songs to the title of the album, they have also lyrically produced some pretty heavy and beautiful material that shows that the Goo Goo Dolls still make material that is meaningful and tells a story. To me, "Boxes" shows that the Goo Goo Dolls, although a band that has been around for a while, can still make music that fans of old can appreciate lyrically while newer fans can enjoy a slightly newer sound while still discovering what has made them so successful in the first place.
Johnny Rzeznik told me once that if he could change the band’s name, he would do it in a heartbeat. But in many ways I’m glad he did not. In some of my darkest times, this band has shed light and has shown me that music can be healing when a person can describe in music what you are feeling inside, and that you are not alone. So the name Goo Goo Dolls, although unique and eccentric in its name, I couldn’t see a more fitting name for an equally unique and successfully trendsetting band, that has influenced and paved the way for a lot of the bands we hear today.
