Why Goo Goo Dolls’ ‘Iris’ Is Having A 28-Year-Long Moment

INDIO, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 27: (FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY) Singer John Rzeznik of Goo Goo Dolls performs on the Palomino Stage during day 3 of the Stagecoach Music Festival on April 27, 2025 in Indio, California. (Photo by Scott Dudelson/Getty Images for Stagecoach)

Getty Images for Stagecoach

Some songs have a moment. Others keep creating new ones. Nearly three decades after the Goo Goo Dolls released “Iris,” the song is still finding new listeners who weren't even alive when it first became a hit.

Over the years, it has lived many lives: a '90s alternative-radio staple, City of Angels soundtrack centerpiece, wedding song, karaoke favorite, streaming giant and TikTok discovery. Now, in 2026, it is finding yet another audience—and the numbers suggest this is about more than nostalgia.

A song released in 1998 generated more than a billion streams in a single year nearly 30 years later. That's not simply a comeback. It's a song refusing to fade.

How “Iris” Went From Four Strings To Billions Of Streams

“Iris” wasn’t originally written to become the defining song of the Goo Goo Dolls. In 1998, John Rzeznik was asked to contribute a song to City of Angels, the romantic fantasy starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. He was shown the film and asked to write from its emotional world.

Rzeznik was in a difficult place at the time, going through a divorce and living in a hotel in West Hollywood. Even his guitar was barely intact—it had only four strings. He began experimenting with an unusual tuning and wrote “Iris” from the perspective of Cage's angel, who is willing to give up immortality to experience human love.

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He wrote it quickly—roughly four hours, by his recollection. The circumstances were almost anti-pop-star. This wasn’t a song engineered to become a generational anthem. It was a song written for a movie, during a messy period in Rzeznik's life, by an artist who had no idea how far the song would travel.

The Goo Goo Dolls recorded it with producer Rob Cavallo, surrounding Rzeznik’s raw vocal with strings and guitars until the song felt almost impossibly large. Then it escaped the movie. City of Angels gave “Iris” its first story. Listeners would give it their own.

The Moments That Keep “Iris” Alive

“Iris” is vulnerable in a way that still feels slightly radical. Rzeznik's voice cracks, strains and eventually breaks open as the strings swell around him. It feels like someone trying very hard not to fall apart—and then failing beautifully.

That rawness has become part of the song’s identity, too. In 2004, during the Goo Goo Dolls' hometown concert in Buffalo, a torrential downpour hit as the band performed. Rzeznik kept singing as thousands of fans sang along in the rain. Years later, footage of the performance went viral online, giving a new generation a striking visual entry point into a song they may never have encountered otherwise.

At its core, “Iris” is about wanting to be seen completely—not the polished version, but the real one. For younger listeners growing up amid curated feeds and carefully constructed online identities, that feeling is hardly outdated. If anything, it may be more recognizable.

Rzeznik has noticed the younger audience, too. “I’m grateful to Taylor Swift, and others who have covered it, for introducing it to a new generation,” he told The Guardian, calling the song’s then-three-billion Spotify streams “astounding and overwhelming.” Gen Z didn't necessarily inherit “Iris” as a '90s classic. They discovered it.

TikTok Didn't Bring “Iris” Back. It Gave People A Reason To Find It.

For decades, an older song usually needed a movie placement, television sync, cover or radio revival to re-enter the cultural conversation. The internet changed the rules.

Now, a song from 1998 can sit alongside one released this week. Algorithms don’t care how old a recording is. If listeners connect with it, a song can keep circulating—and “Iris” has proved almost perfectly suited to that ecosystem.

In 2025, Steve Aoki brought Rzeznik onstage during his Stagecoach set to perform “Iris.” The surprise performance became the starting point for a new studio version, released March 6, 2026, giving the song another entry point into contemporary pop culture. The reimagined version pairs the Goo Goo Dolls' original emotional intensity with Aoki's high-energy electronic production.

That may be the strangest thing about “Iris”: how effortlessly it keeps crossing eras. A song written for a 1990s romantic fantasy is now reaching listeners through TikTok, streaming algorithms and a surprise performance with an electronic dance star. The technology has changed. The audience has changed. The song hasn't.

That's the trick. TikTok didn't have to convince people that “Iris” was good. It just had to give them a reason to hear it.

The Goo Goo Dolls’ Hit That Won’t Age

There is a bigger music-business story hiding inside all of this. The traditional life of a hit was fairly linear: release it, promote it, sell it, play it on the radio, move on.

Streaming blew up that timeline. A song's commercial life no longer has to end. It can sit quietly in a catalog for years, then suddenly reappear because a movie, a meme, a cover, a TikTok or a live performance gives people a reason to press play.

“Iris” is an extreme example of that phenomenon. In 2025, a TikTok from Love Island USA contestant TJ Palma, set to the record alongside footage of his relationship with Iris Kendall, helped propel the song into another wave of attention. The song subsequently reached No. 9 on Spotify’s Global Streaming chart and, for the first time, entered Billboard's streaming charts, where it peaked at No. 39. The collaboration came amid a renewed surge for “Iris,” fueled in part by a viral moment and new peaks on Spotify's U.S. Daily Top Songs and Global Daily charts.

And the numbers are striking. “Iris” has now surpassed 6 billion streams worldwide, with more than 1 billion coming in 2025 alone. Think about it. A song released in 1998, when CDs still dominated music consumption, generated more than a billion streams in a single year nearly three decades later. It wasn't simply remembered. It was listened to. Again and again.

That’s the economic power of a truly evergreen catalog song. Every new listener creates another stream. Every playlist creates another discovery opportunity. Every viral clip can start another cycle. The song doesn't need to behave like a brand-new single to remain valuable. It just needs people to keep finding it.

The Moment That Never Really Ended

There is an easy way to describe what is happening with “Iris”: nostalgia. But nostalgia isn’t quite right. Nostalgia looks backward. “Iris” keeps moving forward.

Its route to listeners has changed almost completely since 1998. First came the movie. Then radio. CDs. Digital downloads. Streaming. Social media. TikTok. Now a collaboration with Steve Aoki.

The technology keeps changing. The song doesn’t. Rzeznik has acknowledged that “Iris” casts a huge shadow over the Goo Goo Dolls’ career. In a 2008 interview, he said that is difficult, but it’s not as though he has to “beat” the song. Maybe he doesn't.

Because very few artists get to watch one song become a kind of cultural heirloom—and then watch a new generation pick it up and make it theirs. In 1998, “Iris” was a song about giving up immortality to experience being human. Nearly 30 years later, it has achieved a different kind of immortality. It keeps becoming new to someone. Some songs have a moment. “Iris” has spent 28 years creating new ones.