Goo Goo Dolls - Let Love In

Eight albums in, the Goo Goo Dolls hired Glen Ballard and made the biggest, glossiest record of their career. Let Love In arrived in April 2006, debuted at number nine on the Billboard 200, and made no apologies for being built end to end for radio. Ballard had already done this for Alanis Morissette and Dave Matthews Band. Here he gives John Rzeznik's songs a widescreen that suits them better than anyone expected.

"Better Days" came out first, hit number three on Adult Top 40, and then did something no one planned: its lyric about wanting one thing at the end of a hard year turned it into a holiday-season fixture, played every December since. It is certified platinum. "Stay With You" followed and went gold. The title track carried the third single, and the album's cover of Supertramp's "Give A Little Bit," produced by Rob Cavallo, is reworked so completely that most listeners assume it is a Rzeznik original. Jack Joseph Puig mixed, Ted Jensen mastered, and the whole record has the kind of sheen that either sells you immediately or does not.

Twenty years on it holds up as the last Goo Goo Dolls album from the era when they were still a fixture on mainstream radio, and "Better Days" alone has outlived nearly everything else from 2006 rock.

This standalone pressing is on silver vinyl with a double-sided lyric and credits insert. On Warner Records.