Ego Opinion Art & Commerce: The Rare 2001 Compilation

Contributor Bailey has asked me to publish her thoughts on a compilation which was released in 2001, mainly aimed at promoting the then-newly worldwide famous band to European and Asian countries.

“Ego, Opinion, Art & Commerce” (in some countries it was released with the extended title “What I Learned About Ego, Opinion, Art & Commerce”) saw the light of day mere months before “Gutterflower” was issued. The label’s aim, at the time, was to capture bigger amounts of fans from Europe and Asia, continents where the Goo Goo Dolls’ previous works were not very well known besides their then-latest effort “Dizzy Up The Girl”.

One of the reasons which made such compilation a special case was the fact that it featured some of the band’s older songs that had been fully remixed and remastered for the first time in the Goo Goo Dolls’ career, rather than merely collected and assembled as they originally were, untouched. That was a very clever way to actually re(introduce) to people’s stereo setups older Goo songs, a process which made it possible to hear them in an enhanced way.

Unfortunately, the album did not perform very well in the USA, mostly because it was poorly promoted there, which is understandable given the fact other continents were the primary objective. As a result, many North American fans didn’t even have access to it, let alone could they manage to experience the compilation’s fully reworked gems it contained.

Bailey has some thoughts to share about this little diamond which, in a way, represents the Goo Goo Dolls’ first Greatest Hits collection ever published.

Hello!

I just wanted to share with you and your viewers a little project of mine I’ve been working on for some time.

As a lot of people know, “EOAC” was a compilation featuring 22 remixed songs from all six Goo albums all the way from Dizzy Up The Girl to First Release.

Unfortunately it’s almost impossible for us Goo fans to find this compilation. It’s not on YouTube and was removed from Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud, etc. 

This is where my little project comes into play. A few years ago I found a new CD (of this album) for sale on EBay, and immediately bought it, since I’d been wanting the album for ages, and was dying to hear what the re-recorded Two Days In February sounded like. It arrived, and I gave it a listen. Wonderful! It’s a b-side masterpiece! 

So, I took the time to rip every song from the CD in the highest FLAC quality onto my computer, and posted every single song from the album in the span of a couple months. I finished off posting the last song a couple days ago. 

First off, I’d like to share the re-recorded studio version of “Two Days in February” since it’s a really highly sought after gem that’s almost impossible to find.

I would’ve loved to post it on YouTube, but there’s some sort of copyright there, which seems strange to me, but it’s online!

The main part of my project consisted of ripping the songs and putting them online, where I arranged them into a playlist. All of them are covered with some of my favorite pictures (of the Goo Goos) with some featuring the original album art as pictured above.

Also, to your standards, I uploaded everything, including all the album art/insert to archive.org!

I would highly recommend to those who have rare Goo (or other things you don’t want to lose) to upload it to this platform. This is the best way to save things online—I agree wholly with you, Temple of Goo! 

So, for those who have been looking for this compilation, this is a sweet treat for you to enjoy. We need to make this compilation more known!!