Good Charlotte

I apologise for not updating for a couple of weeks. I've been insanely busy, but more importantly, I've just had nothing to say. I've heard some really good music, some really decent music and some painfully mediocre music, but nothing that screamed "You can rant abut me for 3,000 words!", so I just didn't write anything. As previously stated, this blog is for my own amusement, so unless someone says something, I'm just not going to bother posting if there's nothing to say.

Now, what I am going to discuss is a band named Good Charlotte. I bought a pair of Good Charlotte albums (The Chronicles of Life & Death and The Young and the Hopeless) after hearing a few of their songs.

The two songs I'd heard of Good Charlotte were "I Just Wanna Live", which is (as I understand it) a rant against the way the media operates, pretty much. A little whiny, but cynical and musically passable. I liked it. The other song was "Girls & Boys", which I liked less, but still a little. This was nowhere as good musically, and was a little too cynical for me. Also, it was irritatingly whiny.

Upon actually listening to the two albums, I took a little while to work out what I thought of the group. Eventually I reached a stance of "They aren't very good, but I could put up with them", mainly based on the fact they sounded like a stereotypical 90's group, and I liked thinking of how dated they sound. Then I found out that both these albums were released in the 21st Century. This is really irritating to me.

I understand that you can't expect groups to instantly change due to the progression of time, but this kind of music (rightfully) died out in the 90's, carried on only by bands which just refuse to die (go on, Blink-182. Just...please, go away). I re-evaluated the group again, this time listening to music, lyrics, vocals and I've worked out the problem: the vocals.

The actual music of Good Charlotte is average, but passable. The lyrics are actually really good. The vocals are horrid. Just pathetic. Although this might appeal to some people, I find Joel Madden's voice whiny, weak, bragging and just so irritating. Overall, this group just sound like a wannabe Green Day (which is a group I really like, if the context of that sentence doesn't quite show that).

Overall, I feel that a group attempting to be as angry as Good Charlotte just needs a better vocalist, especially compared to other groups , again like Green Day. I make the comparison because it is obvious to me, and I'm absolutely certain it's been made before. I'm certain the two groups share a large portion of their fan base. Billie Joe Armstrong really just has that vocal strength to bring what emotions he is trying to convey to the surface.

I don't necessarily mean this as an insult, but Madden's voice is much more suited to a more "emo" group. Although I'm sure Good Charlotte has been placed in the genre before, the non-Joel Madden part of the band seems to be trying to make actual pop-punk-alt-rock music, or whatever the devil you'd call it.

In the end, I think I'm going to keep the Good Charlotte albums I own, but I will most definitely not be investing in any more, due to the fact I have the song I really liked by them. I think giving the group as a whole a star rating is unsuitable. I'll make things really simple:

Of options of "I recommend them" and "I do not recommend them", I do not recommend Good Charlotte to anyone. I can forgive poor music, and poor lyrics, but poor vocals just destroys a group for me, and I'm actually really pissed off at Madden for doing that.

As a final note, I must say that American punk-pop-rock music is not my forte. There may be something I'm not aware of that is impacting my enjoyment of Good Charlotte. In the end, I'm just hoping to find some covers by decent singers. In the end though, this only boils down to my taste in music, which I recommend you take with a grain of salt.

Feedback would be much appreciated.

H. Rourke