lol
Its my neice's birthday soon. (she'll be 10).
I asked her if she'd like the new Gareth gates album for her birthday. she looked at me liked I'd spat at her and said 'he's just for young kids'..lol.

She wants either 'Good charlotte' album, or 'The darkness' album.
I dont think my Sister would appriciate the darkness though, not for a 9 year old anyway. lol

I think the Good Charlotte album is more of a worry than the Darkness one !!

Quick, mods...close the thread. I can feel a Peej rant coming on. And believe me, you don't want to face that prospect

I don't like Good Charlotte, but I respect that they are good at what they do... and realise (unlike most of their fans) that "The Anthem" is a firm tongue in cheek p**s take of the fanbase they have...

"Don't wanna be just like you... This is the Anthem, put all your hands up" (watch as a crowd of the great unwashed all do exactly the same thing, waving their hands in the air in tandem)

Its actually quite a clever bit of work that song

I don't think it's a rib at the expense of their own fans at all - i think they are actually singing from the same hymn sheet as you, amazingly.

Face it - they're not some sort of detached, ironic bunch of chancers who know they're volume sales boyband rock. From interviews and stuff it's obvious to me that they believe they're a rock band whose sound has led them to crossover to the extent that they are the single most important bridge between the worlds of volume sales pop and punk rock.

What they're saying in "Anthem" is more of a dig at bands like Alien Ant Farm, Wheatus and Sum 41 (and Busted, if they had any idea who they were, probably) - hence the self-aware line 'Another loser anthem' - they assumed that Anthem was going to be their biggest hit - in the same way that Teenage Dirtbag, Smooth Criminal, Fat Lip, All The Small Things and Pretty Fly For A White Guy all went huge in the pop arena before the bands in question being dropped by the 'kidz'. It's a song about the fickleness of the mob - but that Good Charlotte (as they go on and on and on and on about on the rest of the album) are the real thing - "It's not a game, it's not an act" etc.

Personally, i think the song rocks. But then again, what do I know...Good Charlotte weren't picking up their third straight Q Magazine Best Band In The World Ever Ever Ever So There award last night

Good Charlotte are perfect for a 9 year old. Fisher Price - My first pseudo-punk-pop-crap.

get her the Metallica album.......... then when she brings it back crying ......you can then get her the Will young album......

Seriously it's nice to see that someone as young as 9 can appreciate good music.........meaning The Darkness.....

my nephew has liked the Beastie Boys since about 7.......
he dosent mind the swearing.... he hears worse in school I'd imagine.......he's 11 now and still likes them.

So they get Good Charlotte, like it, graduate onto Simple Plan, then onto The Offspring, then onto NOFX, then onto Fugazi or NUFAN, then...oh, they're real punks then.

Or would you prefer your oh-so-cool-and-credible little world wasn't popular or talked about, so you can feel special? You're not a music fan. You're a sheep.

Excuse me?

I couldn't care less what's popular or talked about and what isn't. I'd be more than happy to burn off a compilation for any nine year olds that would like one.

Maybe you missed my point, here it is again. I don't like Good Charlotte. Any better? ....too opinionated you think?

But hey, thanks for the psychological accessment. It's a shame you didn't tell me that 20 years ago, if I'd have known I wasn't a music fan I could've saved a fortune on all that music. I will make the necessary alterations to my budget.

...Am I still allowed to vote for Pop Idol or does that count?

And any twenty-nine year olds? Or would you give them your identikit 'real music fan' poe-faced bullshit lecture about them being 'pseudo-punk-pop-crap'?


No, you'd still buy the music because you're a sheep. But to dismiss Good Charlotte while championing bands who haven't 'sold out' or who haven't been 'manufactured' or 'targetted' or whatever isn't just the actions of someone who is too concerned with image to know dick about music, it's also straight up wrong as a fan of punk music.

Or perhaps you're not saying "NOFX - good, Good Charlotte - bad" - maybe you hate the genre entirely. At which point you don't need to get involved in the thread at all. Your choice.


Hell yes. If Pop Idol produces even one artist of the calibre of Will Young, then it's been worth something.

Twenty-nine year olds are welcome too. Share the love. I didn't realise 17 words warranted a lecture. Maybe I should've gone to more in college.


Firstly, I haven't championed anyone for any of the reasons you've given. I dismiss a lot of American pseudo-punk because I don't like it. Admittedly, as a fan of punk the first time round and as a musician and ex member of a lesser known punk outfit I won't mention, it irritates me slightly that Good Charlotte and moreso Avril Lavigne align themselves with punk music and the circumstances that gave birth to the genre. Middle class Americans with ten thousand dollar teeth singing about 'The rich and the famous always complaining' is worthless to me.

I would've thought the Pop Idol obsession excused me from accusations of image concern. Maybe it would help if I sent you a picture. Please save your foundless finger pointing for the NME reading students on the forum. 'Sold out' or 'manufactured' doesn't bother me in the slightest, my criteria are 'good', 'interesting' or even 'funny' and GC don't fulfill any of those for me.


A valid point. You're right, I don't have to contribute just as you don't have to respond to a two line rant with an attempted character assasination. To me Good Charlotte are a kid's band which was, I thought fairly relevent to the thread. If they do it for you then that's great, I hope you and Charlotte are very happy together.


And you sir are a cheeky young upstart. Your uninformed assumptions are totally inaccurate and your accusations absurd.


*taken as sarcasm* I happen to like Will Young.

*taken seriously* Consider it done. ...Nothing so far.

I've given you the option as I don't know you well enough to make rash judgments about your posts. Maybe you could think about extending me the same courtesy.


O/T. Awwww yeah, babies say the damnedest things.

Yeah, all fair points. Perhaps in my haste to rid the world of poe-faced, NME-spouting, image-driven coolier-than-thou music snobs, i picked on the wrong guy.

But you're WAY wrong about Good Charlotte. Of course they don't sit in the pantheon of punk at anywhere near the level of, say, the New York Dolls or Fugazi, but then again punk has evolved. Nobody of note is doing anything in this country from the Clash --> Jam lineage, and in the States even NOFX are making what basically amounts to fratboy rock with a bit of ska thrown in to show they're 'keeping it real'.

Then again, i love fratboy rock, so GC, to me, are the poppiest end of a very cool and accessible genre.

So...and you can quote me on this: I'm sorry. And i wasn't being sarcastic about Pop Idol - Will Young is probably the brightest solo star in British pop in terms of potential to be great. This time round i've seen nothing though.

Good Charlotte are a pop-punk-pish posh average band...

and I'm sorry I still think they are taking a pop at their fans with The Anthem... Its this part

"Do you really wanna be like them, do you really wanna be another trend?
Do you wanna be part of their crowd?
'Cause I don't ever wanna, no I don't ever wanna be"

As they ARE part of another trend, and they realise it !!

Quote you FE? ...this is going on my CV.

Apology humbly accepted. It's a noble cause and a valiant battle. A little friendly fire is unavoidable.

Ironic to you, as someone who sees that their 'demographic' is just as conformist and mainstream as the jocks and cheerleaders - but not to them. They aren't detached enough to do something as clever as that.

Odd - i like Good Charlotte, but i'm arguing that they're dumb and fake, and you dislike them, but you're arguing that they're clever and knowing

Whats going on Eddie, we're using each others arguments here !!!

You have to agree though, they are as mainstream as the jocks and the cheerleaders now... I mean, how many Linkin Park, Korn and Good Charlotte hoodies DON'T you see on kids these days...

Seems its fashionable to feel out of place... Does that mean, by feeling out of place for years and years without flocking to the world of rock-conformism, I'm in place now?!

The problem is that you look at the pop landscape now, the coming together of what were formerly 'niche' genres in the mainstream, and you despair, while i revel in it.

Like you, i served my time - i did the whole shoegazing disaffected, maudlin indie kid thing. I championed Radiohead and Suede and the Stone Roses (and a million other, much more obscure bands), and i gnashed my teeth when shiny happy people took them to their hearts as well - but now i look out there, and i see kids everywhere NOT listening to bubblegum pop, but listening to (admittedly pop-tinged) rock and rap, and i rejoice in it. Because we didn't HAVE any other alternative when we were young - you either listened to Celine Dion, M People and Bon Jovi, or you listened to The Dead Kennedys, NIN or Body Count.

Why is mainstream bad and evil? Why can't we love the fact that cute, popular, well-adjusted girls totally love moshing now? I sure as hell can. And for every ten 9 year olds that digs Busted, you'll get maybe one who picks up a guitar and starts playing rock music himself - surely that's something to be thankful for?

Not if they produce MORE Busted's !!!

If they heard a band that had worked at their art instead of got formed to be put together to sell records... then i'd be thankful...

And the chances are they will - because, as much as i hate it, there's this little switch that goes off in most teenagers' heads that suddenly makes them rebel and go against anything that is 'establishment', whether it's the right decision or not.

Happily, most of us have the switch modified when we hit 20 or so to appreciate music for the end product, not how worthy it is of our time