Good Charlotte - Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous, The Young and the Hopeless (2002)
I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t know every word to this song. Even if, back in 2002, you were one of those people who decided they were too cool for Good Charlotte, there’s still no excuse not to know these lyrics. This video was their first huge hit on TRL, featured Chris Kirkpatrick from ‘N Sync, and got criticized by every single person in the world. Do you remember how up in arms everyone was when this song was released? When every one took the punk vs. poser argument from their self-titled album and amplified it by a million? It’s actually pretty hilarious when you think about how many dudes were sitting around writing letters to AP Magazine for putting Good Charlotte on their cover or caps locking on message boards about a band who wrote songs about their dog. But anyway, angsty The Young and The Hopeless is the last good (?) album Good Charlotte released. I say this without irony: I really, really love this stupid album. Well, okay, about 70% of it.
Important things:
“The Anthem” was a great bridge between their self-titled and The Young and the Hopeless (and also had a good title because all pop-punk songs should be anthems). I love that they’re still yelling “High school sucks! Trends are the worst! I don’t want to be like you! I’m not going to college! Fuck real jobs!” although they were like, 23 and out of school and had a career playing music for thousands of people? It’s adorable.
“The Anthem” has the first Minor Threat reference on this album: “Out of step while they all get in line / I’m just a Minor Threat so pay no mind”
Remember that TRL episode when they did a little sketch at a urinal using the lyrics “Shake it once, that’s fine. Shake it twice, that’s okay. Shake it three times, you’re playing with yourself again”? Because I really wish I didn’t.
The rapping in “Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous” is awful. Also: that song was co-written by Tim Armstrong of Rancid which no one on the internet realized when they were saying “ugh, these teenyboppers who love this song are stupid and should listen to real underground punk like Rancid!!” Ugh, who likes Rancid?
The truly shitty and obviously arguably sexist “Girls and Boys” which is some weird manifesto against materialism but also a TERRIBLE song.
“Riot Girl” is almost as bad but has the second (and funnier) Minor Threat mention: “She likes Minor Threat / She likes Social Distortion / My girl’s a hot girl / A hoodrat who needs an attitude adjustment”
“Hold On” is their anti-suicide anthem because anti-suicide anthems were sort of a requirement for ’00s pop-punk bands (school shootings, too many articles about music causing violence, and lots of embarrassing livejournal entries from girls who didn’t realize they could friends lock posts, etc.). “Hold On” isn’t as good as “Adam’s Song” (what is?) but it’s great and got a ton of play on TRL because all anti-suicide songs made MTV seem empathetic and really in touch with the youth and it was fun to listen to Carson Daly awkwardly plug the suicide hotline.
I love that “Hold On” is on the same album as “The Day That I Die” with the lyrics “The happiest day of my life is the day that I die.” Keep those tweens guessing!
The title track! A good song, especially in 2002 if you were fourteen-years-old and thinking about how your life is going nowhere and how you’re a constant failure and you can’t stop measuring yourself and your accomplishments in terms of other people’s standards or judgements although yo, kid, you’re fourteen. Calm the fuck down and watch TV or something.
It was also an important single because I’m pretty sure the biggest reason why anyone wants to be in a pop-punk band is because you know eventually you’ll get to smash shit and destroy a room in a music video.
“These critics and these trust fund kids try to tell me what punk is but when I see them on the street, they’ve got nothing to say.” A+ Madden twins, NEVER CHANGE.
There isn’t much to say about “Emotionless” because it’s just their requisite bummed out song about their father that’s on every album but here’s a thing: I first downloaded this album from Kazaa, and then from a torrent a few years ago, and today from Mediafire and this song was spelled “Emotionaless” each time.
I think “Movin’ On” is one of the best songs they’ve ever written even if most of it just chanting generic words. “Laugh! Cry! Live! Die!” That’s some Faulkner shit right there.
My Chemical Romance - I’m Not Okay (I Promise), Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge (2004)
I will never forget the first time I saw My Chemical Romance. It was a freak accident on August 3rd, 2002. I just wanted to see this shitty Jersey band called the June Spirit that no one’s ever heard of but me and the eight people in the room that night. MCR came on right after them, Gerard leading the way in all black and wearing more makeup than a MAC employee. My friend and I stood there for a moment, half in awe and half in WTF as they played all the songs off of “I Brought You My Bullets…” I forgot about them until a year or so later, when my friend Marissa P and I were in a car listening to WSOU, jamming out to some song about taking shots of holy water and hanging out in hearses. The car came to a screeching halt when the DJ announced it was My Chem and we swore never to speak of that moment again (sorry Marissa).
While I have almost impulsively purchased Bullets on vinyl several different occasions, it’s this song that gets me. The stupid video and its high school loser mantra was the best example of angry teen angst there was at the time. Because I’m not okay, mom — Someone is wrong on the internet and I need to stay up all night and listen to this angry song on repeat because they know how I feel.
But really though, how many times did you sing along super loud while making camera hand gestures at no one?
TL;DR You really need to listen to me because I’m telling you the truth, I mean this, I’m okay, trust me!
Sugarcult - Bouncing Off The Walls, Start Static (2001)
Notes: Sugarcult existed solely to appear on film and video game soundtracks, they edit out “cocaine” in this video, “Stuck in America” is a much superior song but this video has Ryan Reynolds, and they put out way more albums than they should have.
New Found Glory - My Friends Over You, Sticks and Stones (2002)
This is the anthem that sparked a debate within your group of friends about whether or not New Found Glory sold out because they were on a major label, although you really didn’t fully understand what any of this meant but you read it on the AP Magazine message boards, and it was a silly argument because you all still downloaded Sticks and Stones off Kazaa and loved it and blasted this song during teen break-ups and screamed along with Jordan Pundik because fuck it, I’d still choose my friends over you.
Jimmy Eat World - The Middle, Bleed American (2001)
This is the song that you thought Jimmy Eat World wrote specifically for you when you were in high school because no one else “got it” and no one else understood what it was like to be an awkward teenager who didn’t fit in because you were so different from the hundreds of students in your school who were also sitting in their bedrooms listening to “The Middle” on repeat.
The Ataris - In This Diary, So Long, Astoria (2003)
I need to let everyone know that The Ataris put out three pretty flawless pop-punk albums. Actually, prior to So Long, Astoria, The Ataris were great at straddling the line between pop and punk and they did it much better than most of the other bands on this blog. Their albums were loud and fast and they jammed twenty songs into thirty minutes. They did an acceptable cover of Jawbreaker’s “Boxcar” — and then did an adorable cover of Weezer’s “Butterfly” on the same album. They wrote anthems about smashing things during a bad break-up, about crushing on a girl with a shitty boyfriend, and about going to sweaty basement shows as a teenager. They wrote straightforward songs made specifically for mixtapes (is there a more direct line than “I just want you to know I have a major crush on you”?). They were angry at the radio for playing awful music and angry at the cops for breaking up their shows, but mostly they were just heartbroken about girls.
Kris Roe gave up on love approximately twice an album and then he turned around and offered to rob a quik-e-mart for you. Every song he wrote was the last song he’d ever write about a girl. The Ataris were the band that wanted to hang out with you and listen to the Descendents. They wanted to watch My So-Called Life and talk about how Clerks totally changed the game for independent film. They wanted to steal your parents’ flavored vodka, sit in the backseat of a car, and discuss Catcher in the Rye until you graduated high school and realized that book kind of sucks. The Ataris were a little like Holden Caulfield; angsty, occasionally distrustful, refusing to grow up, whiny, full of complaints but somehow cool because of cynicism and rebellion. Holden and The Ataris were cool when you were thirteen but then you grew up and rolled your eyes when he said phony or The Ataris said teenage riot. Which is probably why The Ataris spent so many songs cautioning you not to grow up — if you stay young forever, you’ll enjoy The Ataris forever. But! I can promise you that The Ataris, at least their first three full-lengths, are still pretty amazing. It doesn’t sound as fast or urgent as it did in 2000, but the main gist is still there.
Unfortunately, then there was So Long, Astoria. The album isn’t as bad as you remember (we can debate their “The Boys of Summer” cover all day and I will admit that I don’t hate it as much as the rest of the world because it’s catchy-as-fuck, it’s pretty fun, and it reminds me of the first time I saw them at Warped Tour and if The Ataris are about anything, they’re about nostalgia). The songs are longer than before, they’re slower and more introspective, and Kris Roe seems to have gotten most of his relationship drama over and done with and now he’s singing about his daughter instead of video games. It’s a natural progression and 90% of pop-punk bands go through it with varying results. It’s just weird to hear The Ataris sing lines like “We said that we would never fit in / when we were really just like them / does rebellion ever make a difference?” because it sounds too adult in comparison to when he yelled about the cops and how the SYSTEM supports slavery and fuck the man, let’s riot! Anyway, In This Diary was THE song from So Long, Astoria that got this band all over the radio and MTV and got stuck in your head all summer until you wanted to die. It’s not the worst song and it sticks with their obsession with nostalgia and growing up but it was pretty much completely downhill from here. As far as I’m concerned, Welcome The Night doesn’t even exist.
Good Charlotte - Little Things, Good Charlotte (2000)
“This song is dedicated to every kid who ever got picked last in gym glass. To every kid who never had a date to no school dance. To everyone who’s ever been called a freak. This is for you.”
I’m just going to put this out there: Good Charlotte were pretty great from 2000-2004. Their weird dance revival stuff later on? Not so much. But back in 2000, Good Charlotte knew how to be a pop-punk band. They wrote catchy songs for tween/teens to relate to, they made fun music videos, and they were cute boys who painted their nails and spiked up their hair because that would really shake society up! They repeatedly told you to “Come on!” and “Get up!” and “Let’s go!” They wanted to be Social Distortion, Sex Pistols, and even Morrissey (just look at Joel in this video, oh my GOD) but they knew they couldn’t so they went with the other bands they grew up on — Blink 182, Green Day, etc. — but still name-dropped these bands in every interview and liner notes. Remember how Benji called himself Kid Vicious? And how they paid homage to “God Save The Queen” in “Festival Song” and dudes got pissed off because Sex Pistols did it first (but Good Charlotte did it better because Sex Pistols kind of suck)? They angered every “real” punk bro out there because if you listened to GC, you were a poser who shopped at Hot Topic and were conforming to society by listening to a poppy band that ended up on TRL — which can we agree was always a hilariously silly argument because when children discuss conformity re: popular culture it’s always someone listening to notoriously loved bands like Ramones and Clash (for good reason) lecturing someone listening to a band everyone openly hates so, where’s the logic? This is all unimportant!
So, most importantly, Good Charlotte wrote songs for you! You, the angsty fourteen-year-old outcast who hated the popular kids, had an unrequited crush on a classmate, and complained that the school dress code didn’t allow you to stick safety pins in your ears or wear your ripped up homemade Minor Threat t-shirt because the MAN is always trying to get you down and the whole world is constantly trying to stifle your creativity. And ugh, you know what? Fuck you Mom and Dad for not letting me go to Warped Tour just because I have summer school in the morning. Who CARES if I failed pre-algebra? I don’t NEED school, okay? You don’t get me — I don’t want to work in corporate America, I don’t want your future, fuck your nine-to-five, I’m a PUNK ROCKER. You’ll regret grounding me when I run away to start a band and hey, can I have an advance on my allowance so I can buy a cool electric guitar? I’ll need a ride to the mall, too.
But seriously, their self-titled? It’s every pop-punk theme, ideal, trope, whatever about being an outcast in High School. That “Little Things” intro up there is the first thing Joel Madden says on the album and, double negative aside, it’s obviously just their silly thesis for the whole album. They grew up poor, they were losers, they weren’t cool enough for Mandy Moore, and they hated their father. The entire album is about how they were lazy and unmotivated (The Motivation Proclamation) and they never wanted a boring real job (Festival Song) but they wanted enough money to pay rent (Waldorf Worldwide). They took lessons from Blink 182 and wrote songs as if they were still in High School (I Heard You, The Click) and not fitting in (with you, and your stuck-up friends).
TL;DR: HOW CUTE ARE THE MADDEN TWINS IN THEIR VIDEO BEFORE? They are so young and not totally covered in tattoos and adorable!
