Drake, Ed Sheeran and Tyler, the Creator, are usually reliable hitmakers. But the songs they’ve put out this summer haven’t stuck around.
Instead, listeners keep returning to a power ballad from 1998: “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls. It has been a top 25 global hit on Spotify for most of the last three months, even reaching as high as No. 15.
“This is the biggest our band has ever been,” says John Rzeznik, the Goo Goo Dolls’s lead singer and chief songwriter—an unusual twist for a group formed nearly 40 years ago.
“Iris” has never strayed too far from pop’s center. Thanks to a chorus that hits like a cannonball and lyrics that revel in angst—“you bleed just to know you’re alive”—“Iris” is a favorite among both amateurs at karaoke night and stars looking to spark a singalong: Beyoncé and Taylor Swift have both covered the track.
Its latest eruption is partially thanks to “Deadpool & Wolverine,” one of the biggest movies of 2024, which featured the song. As the Goo Goo Dolls barnstorm the country, playing “Iris” on tour, it’s become a part of many listeners’ daily musical diet once again. The band appeared at Stagecoach, the country music-themed festival, in April, on the finale of “American Idol” in May, and at Demi Lovato’s wedding later the same month.
“A new generation is discovering the Goo Goo Dolls’s anthems,” says Tom Corson, co-chairman and COO of Warner Records, allowing the band to “thrive in the youthful TikTok zeitgeist.”
Many of these new fans likely weren’t born when the group released their first album in 1987.
Originally an independent rock band from Buffalo, N.Y., the Goo Goo Dolls spent years touring in a van. “We didn’t break until we had five albums out,” Rzeznik says. In the second half of the 1990s, “Name,” “Iris” and “Slide” all reached the top 10 on the Hot 100.
“Iris” has proved to be uniquely buoyant: It returned to the singles chart in the U.K. in 2011 after it was covered on “The X Factor,” and two years later it was back again when it was covered on “Britain’s Got Talent.”
This time its resurgence has been a global phenomenon. Originally written for the romantic drama “City of Angels,” starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan, the song’s latest boost came from another movie. “Deadpool & Wolverine” featured “Iris” along with other older hits like *NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” and Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.” Streaming of all three songs increased, but while those two songs tailed off, “Iris” remained sticky long after the film left theaters.
The Goo Goo Dolls have often joked about “the shadow” cast by their signature hit. “It was so omnipresent,” says Robby Takac, the band’s 60-year-old co-founder and bass player. “As we were doing new stuff, it was always compared to that. We could have songs in the top 10, but it was just impossible to have the same impact.”
“Sometimes I feel like I wrote one song,” Rzeznik says.
Still, they enjoy recording new music. Their latest release is “Summer Anthem,” an EP that reckons with mortality despite its breezy title. The lead single is called “Nothing Lasts Forever;” on the mournful closer, “Not Goodbye (Close My Eyes),” Rzeznik sings as if he’s holding vigil by the bedside of a dying companion: “You can breathe out/It’s all right/You can go now.”
“I’m starting to be like, ‘Oh f—, I’m getting old,’” Rzeznik says. “Some of that change is just not fun, seeing people you care about wither and die.”
Even though he turns 60 in December, Rzeznik has been “trying to embrace new media.” Earlier this year, Jonathan Tilkin and Anthony Gargiula, who have become popular on TikTok for covering hits in their kitchen, reached out to see if he would swing by to join them for a performance. As fans of the Goo Goo Dolls, the pair had previously posted a cover of “Iris” when they were starting to build an audience online.
Rzeznik agreed to sing with them, belting his hit while seated on the edge of the kitchen sink with Gargiula; Tilkin stood to strum an acoustic guitar. They added a flourish of three-part harmonies that turned heads on TikTok, where a clip of the performance pulled in more than five million views.
“That song has always been in the ether,” Tilkin says. “I can close my eyes, and I’m in the back seat of my parents’ car going who knows where, and I can hear ‘Iris’ on the radio.”
Write to Elias Leight at elias.leight@wsj.com
