Cons: see review...15 words is too little space for everything
The Bottom Line: Good Charlotte is about as generic and bland as pop punk goes. They have successfully taken over the "Fisher Price" title from Blink 182.
MattA75's Full Review: The Young and the Hopeless by Good Charlotte
Over the past 4 years or so, pop-punk has seen a revival of sorts, mostly thanks to bands like Blink 182 and Sum 41, who combined a snotty 1994 era Green Day attitude with hooks catchy enough to be put next to Britney Spears and The Backstreet Boys on top 40 radio and MTV.
Unfortunately, just as Blink 182 isn't anywhere near the band Green Day is, the Blink 182 followers aren't anywhere near Blink 182. This is not a good thing. Just ask Good Charlotte.
This band built up quite a buzz thanks to some energetic live shows and a minor hit single in Little Things. They didn't quite take off the way a lot of people thought they would, but they still scored a gold album award for their self titled debut disc. Personally, I didn't see what the buzz was all about (outside of 2-3 songs), and I reamed the debut album six ways from Sunday. That being said, I did see that this band held a bit of potential to be somewhat enjoyable.
So with their sophomore release, The Young and the Hopeless, the band is trying to build on their initial success, and doing well at it too. The album has hovered in Billboard's top 40 since it's release, and the lead single, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, is getting to be a pretty big crossover hit. That's the good news for the band. The bad news?
THIS RECORD SUCKS.
Yes, unfortunately, MTV fame has gone to the head of the band's infamous brotherly duo, Joel and Benji Madden. It's one thing to write a bad album when nothing is expected of you saleswise. But to write an infinitely worse album that reeks of that dreaded "s" word when you were already poised to break big on your own (albeit few) merits, that speaks volumes.
It's not that the music on this record is inherently bad. Hell, it's an easy listen, it goes down easier than those cough drops that taste just like candy (you all know the ones I'm talking about), and it's really about as threatening as my cat is, which is to say not very. The problem lies in the BORING nature of the music, the lack of imagination in the band's songwriting, and the overused, monotonous punk cliches that gets spouted off to no end.
Girls and Boys, for example, suffers from a classic pop punk high school mindset. My Bloody Valentine is actually an extremely well written song with regards to the lyrics, but the music sounds stale, and the vocal delivery is on par with Adam Sandler's in the original version of The Chanukah Song.
Of course, no pop punk album of this era would be complete without your "rebellious anthem." But Good Charlotte takes it one step further by even naming their "rebellious anthem" The Anthem. You know the one, the one where the lead singer screams about how he wants to be himself, he wants to be different, he doesn't fit in and he's proud of it. Sorry guys, but the absolute last time this worked was with Fat Lip for Sum 41, and that's only because that song was too catchy not to like.
To their credit, the band does try a couple of things that at least sound different. Unfortunately, these little diversions aren't much better. Worst of all is Emotionless, which is an appropriate title for the song, given it's over-reliance on tugging at the heartstrings and it's 80s power ballad song structure. And don't even get me started on Riot Girl, which is about as punk as Sk8er Boi by Avril Lavigne (and it's not even nearly as good a song either).
It's not that I hate Good Charlotte. Unlike other bands who have broken big, they don't grate on me (see Linkin Park, Disturbed, and most of all 3 Doors Down.). I just happen to think they aren't a very good band. So I'll let the rest of you blow your load over this "been there done that" band. Me? I'll go pop in the last Green Day disc.
Product DetailsOriginal Title:The Young and The HopelessCondition: NEWFormat: CDArtist: Good CharlotteLanguage: EnglishGenre: RockMore at iNetVideo.com
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