Songoftheday 1/10/20 - And even though the moment passed me by I still can't turn away, 'cause all the dreams you never thought you'd lose got tossed along the way...

"Name" - Goo Goo Dolls
from the album A Boy Named Goo (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 33

Today's song of the day comes from the band Goo Goo Dolls, who came together in Buffalo, New York in the mid-1990s originally as a punk outfit with friends Robby Takac as the lead singer and George Tutuska on drums joined by guitarist Johnny Rzeznik. The trio's self-titled debut album was released in 1987 independently, before being signed to hard rock label Metal Blade for their sophomore effort Jed, which had Rzeznik sing lead on two of its 14 tracks. But it was their third release, Hold Me Up, that got peoples' attention. With Johnny now leading on six of the songs (the same number as Takac, his more palatable voice and mainstream-friendly production broke through to a different audience than their punk beginnings, and ended up in their first rock radio hit, "There You Are" (Alternative Rock #24) in the beginning of 1991.

Building on this momentum, the Dolls released their fourth disc Superstar Car Wash in 1993. From it the track "We Are The Normal", sporting lyrics from alt-rock legend Paul Westerberg of the Replacements, got big play on MTV an went to #5 on Billboard's Alternative Rock chart. The string-laced softer arrangement of this song foretold what would come on their next record that would bring their mainstream pop breakthrough.

A Boy Named Goo was released in the spring of 1995, with "Only One" set as the lead single. The harder-edged song still had the power-punk sensibilities of Green Day, and rose to #21 on the Mainstream Rock chart and #36 on the Alternative list. After that, the album track "Flat Top", a more straightforward guitar cruncher, was promoted to radio, and slipped in at #38 on the Mainstream Rock chart. At about the same time, the true "second single" from the album was pushed at Alternative/Modern Rock radio. It would be the more acoustic/bare "Name". Written by Rzeznik and produced by Lou Giordano, the ballad finally gave the band their first big hit...

"Name" became the Goo Goo Dolls' first single to reach the pop chart, climbing all the way into the top five in January of 1996. The song was a massive rock radio success, topping both the Mainstream (five weeks) and Alternative (four weeks) rock format charts. The jangle-pop influenced track also crossed over to Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart at #4, while on the newly-created Adult Top-40 format tally the song spent a week at #2, and on the Triple-a Rock format spent it first week at #3. Internationally, the single peaked at #2 in Canada, and got to #35 in Iceland.

The success was bittersweet, though, with Tutuska getting kicked out of the band right as they hit big because he was fighting the band over songwriting credit owed, as they themselves found fighting Metal Blade over alleged unpaid residuals. He was replaced by Mike Malinin, who has beat the skins. They followed up "Name" with the song "Naked" from the Boy Named Goo album, which radio also embraced; the airplay only "single" wasn't able to be on the pop Hot 100, but it did land at #47 on the Hot 100 Airplay chart, while making the top ten on both the Mainstream (#8) and Alternative (#9) format tallies, and it almost made the top-40 at #42. Lastly, the fifth promoted release from the album, the driving "Long Way Down", was also prominently on the soundtrack to the movie Twister, and ended up grabbing more of the female fanbase, climbing to #7 on the Mainstream Rock list and #25 on Alternative radio.

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Here's the band making their television debut on the Letterman show in 1995...