r/90sRock

Who else has them all?

🎶"Black Balloon"🎶 is a song by American 🇺🇲 rock band Goo Goo Dolls. It was released in June 1999 as the fourth single from the band's sixth studio album, Dizzy Up the Girl 📀 (1998), and reached No. 3 in Canada 🇨🇦, No. 16 in the United States 🇺🇲, and No. 23 in Iceland 🇮🇸.

The song, according to lead singer John Rzeznik 🎙, is based on a woman who is struggling with a heroin addiction and her lover who is desperately trying to save her. He has also said that it is about "seeing someone you love that is so great just screw up so bad." Speculation had it that the specific person the song was based on was the ex-wife of bassist Robby Takac; she died of a heroin overdose.

Like many other songs by Goo Goo Dolls, 🎶"Black Balloon"🎶 uses an unusual alternate tuning. Several electric guitars used in the introduction and the acoustic rhythm guitar are tuned to an open D-flat fifth chord. It was half-stepped on the album version.

The track reached 📈 No. 13 and No. 28 on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks and Mainstream Rock Tracks charts, respectively.🎶"Black Balloon"🎶 was the band's first commercially released single in the US since 🎶"Name"🎶 in 1995, reaching No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 💯 with its combined sales and airplay figures.In Canada 🇨🇦, the song reached No. 3 on the RPM 💯 Hit Tracks chart, giving the Goo Goo Dolls their fourth top-three hit there.Outside North America, the song charted in Iceland 🇮🇸 and the United Kingdom 🇬🇧, reaching No. 23 in the former country and No. 76 in the latter.

The video 🎬 opens with a woman blowing smoke into a soap bubble. It then moves into showing scenes from a 1950s era swim club while the band performs the song. The video was directed 📽 by Nancy Bardawil.

With Ten turning 35 this year, I've been thinking a lot about this conversation I recorded with Jeff Ament for my podcast — specifically this clip where he unpacks his relationship with the word "grunge" in real time.

A few things in here that I didn't expect:

• He's pretty clear that "grunge" always felt like a Sub Pop/Mudhoney/Melvins term to him — not Pearl Jam's. He was in Green River with Mark Arm, so he felt connected to it, but he and Stone always wanted to push further out the moment a sound started to define them.
• He knew Chris Novoselic five years before Nevermind existed. The way he frames the scene isn't nostalgia — it's more like a neighborhood he grew up in.
• The part that actually stopped me: he talks about the people who are gone now — Kurt, Layne, Mark Lanegan — and how the resentment of being grouped together has flipped into something closer to wanting to champion them. Hard not to feel that.
• He calls it "the last real scene" and then immediately asks if I'd seen Meet Me in the Bathroom — which says something about how he's still measuring it.

Short clip, about two and a half minutes. Felt like the right moment to share it given the anniversary.

Disclaimer I am not a singer/rapper lmao but she didn’t wanna do the rap part

I know I'm not playing what he plays on the actual song, but this is the song that got me into rhcp and frusciante as a whole. That funky lil riff is so catchy I love it so much.

Synopsis: 

The debut album from Candlebox was released on July, 20th 1993. It represented a change of the 90s alt rock sound. Moving away from the sludge aggressiveness of the grunge era. The album has more of a blues based pop rock energy. The album was a massive success selling over four million albums and charting with their big hits “You” and “Far Behind”
Review:
The album opens with “Don’t You” . It has this high energy hook. It just feels so heavy and aggressive. Kevin Martin’s soaring vocals and Peter Klett’s guitar work are highlights. “Change” has more of a melodic groove. It starts out so slow but just builds momentum throughout its runtime. “You” has become one of the best “Post” grunge anthems. It has this choppy yet chilled out groove. It inherits the slow/heavy/slow pace that was so popular in rock music at the time. I love the driving rhythms from Bardi Martin (Bass) and Scott Mercado (Drums). “No Sense” has a jazz based melodic groove. It feels so sharp and clean. “Far Behind” was the band’s big hit from the album. It feels more like a pop rock ballad than a heavy sludge track. “Blossom” experiments with some psychedelic rock troupes. It feels so chilled out and moody. “Arrow” hits hard with its aggressive groove. “Rain” introduces some bluesy riffs to the band’s post-grunge sound. It's a nice change of pace for the record. “Mother’s Dream” is the band’s most aggressive heavy and dense sounding song on the album. It feels more akin to the Seattle grunge sound than anything else on the record. “Cover Me” is this moody emotional ballad but it still contains some 90’s dense rock melodies. The album closes with “He Comes Home” is this moody introspective track that rather than gain momentum it just fades aways to end the record. 
Final Thoughts:

This is just a great post-grunge rock record. It is filled with great hooks and melodies. The band sometimes gets some flack for being a grunge wannabe but I will defend this album until my dying breath. I just love it. I feel some realness in the band and its unfair it gets clumped into some of the mediocrity that followed some of the rock music in the mid-90’s. Unfortunately the band never reached the heights of this album again. Put this one on your bucket list to relive some 90’s rock glory.