Goo Goo Dolls

It's easy to forget that the Goo Goo Dolls were once a punk band with a sound that suggested a heavier update of their heroes, The Replacements. It was a pair of sentimental, acoustic '90s hits—“Name” and its identical cousin “Iris”—that transformed the group into the adult-contemporary softies they are known as. Even that maudlin makeover, though, did little to disguise the darker songwriting of singer/guitarist John Rzeznik, whose lyrics dwelled on themes of addiction and divorce. Last year the band released their ninth album, Something for the Rest of Us, which they recorded with a host of producers, including Butch Vig, John Fields and Rob Cavallo.