After this, they relaxed a bit, recorded the wonderful "Iris" and finally became totally famous, at long long last, god bless 'em. But they left one last perfect blast of punk/pop behind them, and dear lord in heaven, is it ever fantastic.
Right from the first track, it's all wonderful, Jon Rzeznik singing a barnstormer, "Long Way Down," that kicks the 'Placemats burden they were always saddled with, because even more so than before, this is something that rips into me even more than Paul Westerberg ever could or did (and by this time in his career he was well on the route to total yawnsomeness, so all hail the new gods). The chorus here just has this wonderful slide to it, and when he wonders if he can actually make it on his own, you have to wonder if he can, because that's about how it fully feels.
So both Rzeznik and Robbie Takac are just totally on form throughout and better, it all feels so powerful, so touching and so rich. And I say this having long since tired of the basic form in many ways; the world needs another such group like it needs a hole in the head. But actually it does, because I'd like to see a group with Takac's sweet laughing way with a chorus like "Burnin' Up" has, especially on the counterpoint vocal, or how "Naked" starts with such a thick, lovely feedback rush, and the chunky breaks before the chorus and how Rzeznik's own killer chorus is wrought and wracked and sad while being glorious at the same damn time, and how the softly-spoken word break in the middle tears my heart ever time.
And there's song after song of this sheer brilliance, one after another! A greatest hits album without even trying, it seems, so bring it on, all of it, the way all the songs are perfectly chewy pop and still rock hard. A dismissive review of the Goos a couple of years later said they were just a neo-Poison, not realizing that this could be a compliment, but more importantly, missing the fact that Rzeznik and Takac aren't Bret Michaels -- not arrogant if fun strutting, but heart-to-heart conversations, especially Rzeznik, unheralded master of the turn of phrase and singing just so, looking at the mass media desert in "Flat Top," wondering about the "washed out hippie dreams" and somehow never once sounding like Bruce Friggin' Springsteen. That's why I hold this band so close to my heart, and fiddlesticks to claims of their being uncool. I'll take uncoolness, thanks very much.
I can't leave without talking about Rzeznik's "Name," the song that finally broke them a bit on radio and laid the way to being massive later on. The one acoustic track on the record, the obvious radio hit I hear the cynics say, yeah yeah yeah, to heck with you, it wasn't even planned as a single, it just turned out that way when some DJs actually took a chance on it, a rare thing these days. Aching with more unspoken regrets than I could ever fully count, with a perfect unexpected hook to it and lyrics that sum up and spit out what's left of the American Dream and then some without having to beat your head over the fact, at times I think there wasn't a more perfect three, four minutes of radio in the nineties. And just maybe there wasn't.