The Young And The Hopeless

Good Charlotte worked with producer Eric Valentine on The Young and the Hopeless, with Josh Freese playing drums during the sessions. Joel and Benji Madden turned outsider frustration into tightly arranged pop-punk songs, giving the choruses enough space to carry the record beyond the band's first audience.

“Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous” directs its irritation at celebrity complaints, while “The Anthem” rejects an ordinary prescribed future. The slower “Hold On” changes the pace and subject. Those shifts keep the album's adolescent anger from becoming one continuous sprint.