reviving pop-punk

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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.

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!