Album · Goo Goo Dolls
A Boy Named Goo by Goo Goo Dolls
A Boy Named Goo is an album by Goo Goo Dolls, released in 1994. 3 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 60 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Name”, on 42 lists with a best position of #2.
A Boy Named Goo, the fifth Goo Goo Dolls album, came out on Warner Bros. and Metal Blade, and it's the record where the scrappy Buffalo band grew up in public. They had started as a cover act and worked their way into a punk sound, with John Rzeznik singing and playing guitar and Robby Takac on bass and vocals, and here, with Lou Giordano producing, the rough edges start giving way to real songcraft.
There's still plenty of loud, fast guitar crunch, but the best moments slow down and open up. "Name" is the one that changed everything: a hushed, rueful ballad with Rzeznik half-confessing over the strum, it became the band's breakthrough single and carried them into the mainstream. "Naked" and "Long Way Down" gave the rock stations more of the snarl.
It was also the end of an era behind the kit. This is the last Goo Goo Dolls album with George Tutuska on drums; Mike Malinin took his place just before it hit the shelves. The album went double platinum within a year.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from A Boy Named Goo on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Name | 42 | #2 | – | 1995–2025 | |
| 2 | Naked | 14 | #41 | – | 1996–2005 | |
| 3 | Long Way Down | 4 | #91 | – | 1996–2014 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.