Awhile back, I churned out an excessively protracted and unconscionably self-indulgent piece detailing my various likes and dislikes when it comes to music (Shut Up. Listen. Learn./11.19.06). One of the arguments I made during that little musical manifesto was that it's entirely possible to like a band's music while hating the band itself; the example I cited -- at least in my case -- was Good Charlotte.
Understand, if someone woke me tomorrow morning and told me that Joel and Benji Madden had just been eaten by sharks, I'd probably respond by promptly turning my pillow over to the cool side.
That said, it's one of the universe's most puzzling conundrums that every good Charlotte Album has one -- and only one -- absolutely amazing track. I'm not talking simply good; I'm talking about three-minutes and thirty-seconds of sheer pop bliss; I'm talking about a song that's catchier than syphillis and for reasons you can't even begin to understand, manages to somehow find its way onto every single one of your iPod playlists -- even the one you titled "Fragile Butterflies Perched Peacefully Atop Deepak Chopra's Ass While He Assumes the Downward-Facing Dog Position."
On 2002's The Young and the Hopeless, that song was Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
On 2004's, The Chronicles of Life and Death, it was Predictable.
Good Charlotte's new album, Good Morning Revival, hits stores today. The first official single, The River, is a decent enough song; it features two of the guys from one of the most ridiculous bands currently making music, Avenged Sevenfold. (It also manages to fulfill the peculiar unwritten law in pop music which requires that somebody record an overly-earnest cautionary tale about Los Angeles every ten years or so.) Months before its release though, another song was already making the rounds on the internet.
It was obvious even at the time that Take Your Hands Off My Girl was this album's gem.
It sounds like nothing they've done before -- nothing else on the on the album -- and nothing they'll likely do again. It's just a really fucking great song.
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