It’s interesting to see how the punk cannon is defined in the internet age. A band like Fall Out Boy (who, full disclosure, I’m a fan of and occasionally cover on this website) gets continued coverage on sites specializing in punk despite the fact they’ve long ago revealed themselves to be a pop band who only briefly infused some punk in the mix.
Meanwhile, a band like Buffalo’s Goo Goo Dolls, whose last punk influenced release turns 20 this month, gets completely left out since they made their transition to mom-rock before most current punk sites existed. And it’s a shame, because early and mid period GGD still very much rules, especially A Boy Named Goo, an album whose timeless rock sounds just as fresh today as it did 20 years ago.
Goo Goo Dolls started out as a more straight forward punk rock band and in another world would be spending their twilight years co-headlining gigs with Lawrence Arms and taking bands like Beach Slang on the road. Before I go any further with this review, I want the uninitiated to click the video below and check out “Laughing,” the first track from the band’s 1990 LP Hold Me Up, and then put on Lawrence Arms’ “porno and snuff films” and see if you can tell the difference.
If you’re thinking, “that doesn’t sound like Johnny Rzeznik!” you’re right. In the early days of the band, bassist Robby Takac’s rough, proto-orgcore vocals dominated the band’s records. It wasn’t until the release of Hold Me Up that Rzeznik’s more melodic vocals began to get an equal share. By the time followup Superstar Carwash came out, Rzeznik was fully established as the band’s lead singer.
Off the strength of Rzeznik-led Hold Me Up single “There You Are,” the band began transitioning from Metal Blade Records to industry giant and then-Metal Blade distributor Warner Brothers. And as they did, they also started cleaning up their sound. Whether it was the label’s desire to score another song as good as “There You Are” or the band’s desire to succeed on the radio, Goo Goo Dolls now closely resembled Let It Be-era Replacements, a band that similarly started out a bit more rough around the edges. Replacements frontman Paul Westerberg was brought in to co-write a song for Superstar Carwash, the album’s first single “We Are the Normal,” but much like The Replacements themselves, GGD found it hard to translate college rock success to the mainstream.
By the time A Boy Named Goo was released by Warner Bros. on March 14, 1995, the band had almost ten years under their belt and with little more than minor play on college stations and a few spins on MTV’s 120 Minutes, Goo was the sound of a band giving it one last shot before throwing in the towel. “Ain’t That Unusual,” my favorite track on the album, is the perfect example of this. Rzeznik sings “Cuz all we are is what we’re told, and most of that’s been lies” on the soaring chorus, likely referring to the accolades by the small press that had kept the band going, despite not actually reaching true alt rock fame.
The band teased A Boy Named Goo with first single “Only One,” a Rzeznik-led track that recalls the band’s punk influenced past. The song has arguably the biggest kick of any on Boy, particularly during the verses with that buzzsaw riff provided by Rzeznik. Those same buzzsaw riffs can also be found on the album’s excellent opener “Long Way Down,” a song that sounds like the child of Cheap Trick and Superchunk.
“Flat Top,” the album’s second single, is a garage punk-influenced pop/rock tune whose crunching guitars and soaring chorus recall the best of late-period Hüsker Dü (Boy was produced by Lou Giordano, a longtime collaborator of Hüsker Dü), another band the Goo’s mid-period sound owes a lot to. It’s also one of the band’s most political songs, with Rzeznik taking aim at the effect that television has had on American politics. (Fun fact! The music video for “Flat Top” features a young Norman Reedus, who would go on to success in starring roles in Boondock Saints and The Walking Dead).
Mainstream success would finally come with the release of A Boy Named Goo’s third single, “Name.” Quite a departure from the band’s sound, it is a full on ballad that would be more at home on your local adult contemporary station than the left-of-the-dial college stations of the band’s past. The song went on to reach the top of both the US Modern Rock chart and the US Album Rock chart, and reached number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. The band basically used the same formula to produce “Iris” for the City of Angels soundtrack a few years later to even greater commercial success. (Fun fact #2, “Name” was written about Rzeznik’s relationship with MTV VJ Kennedy).
One of Boy’s best tracks isn’t even featured on the readily available version of the album. “Stand Alone” was written by drummer George Tutuska, who was fired from the band shortly before the album’s release. The song, which features vocals from Takac, was removed from all but promo copies of Boy and replaced by two punk covers, but it’s one of the band’s catchiest, a pop/rock song that could have easily been a single and is worth tracking down. Luckily Takac is still given many chances to shine on the official release of the album, particularly on the short but sweet pop punk leaning “Burnin’ Up.”
Post Boy has been kind of a mixed musical bag for Goo Goo Dolls. The band continued to grow in mainstream popularity with the album’s follow up, 1998’s Dizzy Up the Girl, but that growth moved them away from the more rambunctious style that brought them early accolades. To the band’s credit, they found a way to make music their career and still play huge venues – but as a fan of their earlier work, I’ve found it hard to connect to their recent work outside of a song or two.
In the age of albums with much less success being celebrated with front-to-back performances and tours, it’s a damn shame Boy is being left with, at best, the obligatory performance of “Name” in the band’s setlist. The album allowed for the continued existence of the band and in my opinion, deserves a little more love.
But while no A Boy Named Goo-dedicated tour has been announced, fans of the album can continue to hear its sound in the underground, with bands like Philadelphia’s Beach Slang, Vancouver’s Japandroids and even Vegas’ own Mercy Music pulling influence from the same Hüsker Dü and Replacements records that the Goo Goo Dolls did in their early days.
-Emily Matview
Tracklisting:
1. “Long Way Down”
2. “Burnin’ Up”
3. “Naked”
4. “Flat Top”
5. “Impersonality”
6. “Name”
7. “Only One”
8. “Somethin’ Bad”
9. “Ain’t That Unusual”
10. “So Long”
11. “Eyes Wide Open”
12. “Disconnected” (The Enemies cover)
13. “Slave Girl” (Lime Spiders cover)
‘A Boy Named Goo’ turns 20 years old this month! Why not celebrate and pick the album up via iTunes or listen to it below on Spotify.
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