Wednesday December 2, 2009

If you're only familiar with the music of the Goo Goo Dolls from the past 15 years or so, chances are you might pop a forehead vein if you stumbled upon this 1989 track from the band's sophomore album, Jed. For one thing, bassist Robby Takac still handled most of the group's vocal duties at that early point, and it hardly suffices to say that his vocal style lacks resemblance to the now-familiar, pop-oriented approach of long-time frontman and guitarist Johnny Rzeznik. Beyond that obvious difference, the Dolls' early sound stands out as a pleasantly disorienting blend of hardcore punk, power pop and pulverizing hard rock. In fact, for the first relatively unheralded years of the band's career, the music industry had no idea how to market or categorize the music.

In fact, I remember once seeing a video for one of the group's tracks from 1991's Hold Me Up played on MTV's Headbanger's Ball, which is really strange when one considers how directly that album draws from the mid-'80s work of alternative pioneers the Replacements. As for "Sex Maggot" in particular, the song's title recalls one of the group's earliest work-in-progress names, but more importantly it works wonders as a riffy romp through the immature yet spirited mind of an adolescent. The tune may ultimately be quite meaningless, but it's the kind of nonsense that resonates nonetheless, like the rock and roll version of an Edward Lear poem. "I hear you screaming, but you can't come in," Takac delivers in his distinctive yowl, "because I know that you're just a sex maggot!" If Rzeznik's raw but mighty riffing doesn't take you away from there, then I guess it's safe to say that you may lean toward the nearly adult contemporary, "Iris" camp of Goo Goo Dolls fans.

[source]http://80music.about.com/b/2009/12/02/this-weeks-forgotten-gem-of-the-80s-goo-goo-dolls-sex-maggot.htm[/source]