Songoftheday 11/15/23 - Always see it on T.V. or read in the magazines, celebrities they want sympathy...
"Lifestyles Of The Rich and Famous" - Good Charlotte
from the album The Young and the Hopeless (2002)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #20 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 7
Today's song comes from the rock band Good Charlotte, who came together in the southern Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC in the mid 1990s. Led by twins Benji and Joel Madden, schoolmates Paul Thomas on bass and drummer Aaron Escolopio were recruited at first, with rhythm guitarist Billy Martin joining soon after. After playing the local club circuit, and opening for mid-level rock acts like Lit and Sum 41, the band was signed to Epic Records, after the positive radio love in the area for their song "Little Things", which would become the lead single from their eponymous debut album in 2000. The song slipped on to Billboard magazine's Alternative Rock radio chart at #23, while the album spent a couple weeks on the Billboard 200 sales tally with a high of #185. Despite that, it would go on to sell over a half-million copies.
Despite this slow burn success, Escolopio left the group, and the band hired on journeyman Josh Freese (who now is the drummer for Foo Fighters) to help record their sophomore effort The Young and the Hopeless. Produced by Eric Valentine, the record's lead single was the snarky look at the "wealthy life" on "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous", written by the Madden brothers with Tim Armstrong, a respected part of the punk community as the leader of the group Rancid. The lyrics very effectively take the piss out of celebrities complaining about what a hard life in the spotlight they have. The chorus comes in with the effective tag "If money is such a problem, well they got mansions think we should rob them". They get even more direct, almost name-checking OJ Simpson (well, naming his lawyer to get off killing their wife) as well as crack-smoking Washington-DC mayor Marion Berry (being from the area, its definitely an apt subject). It definitely was a good counterpoint to the slew of brand porn and wealth bragging that was going on in hip-hop at the time. The production is like the more agreesive male counterpart to Avril Lavigne's melodic distillation of the genre. The music video has *NSYNC's Chris Kirkpatrick making fun of himself (albeit as a fake character) while bringing in another punk legend for a cameo, the Minutemen's Mike Watt...
"The Lifestyle Of The Rich and Famous" became Good Charlotte's first hit on Billboard's Hot 100, reaching the top-20 in February of 2003. On the radio, the song peaked at #6 on the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart, and #38 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, while just missing the top ten by a notch (#11) on Billboard's Alternative Rock radio chart. Internationally, the single was even bigger in the tabloid-crazy United Kingdom, making it to #8, while reaching the top-40 in Sweden (#14), Australia (#17), Switzerland (#19), Ireland (#20), the Netherlands (#23), Austria (#24), Germany (#27), New Zealand (#33), and Belgium (#37 Flanders). The Young and the Hopeless album, released in October of 2002, came in at #7 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over three million copies.
The second single from the record, "The Anthem", became the band's highest-charting hit on the Alternative Rock radio chart at #10, while stalling right under the Hot 100 top-40 at #43. But again, it was big in the UK, scoring a second top ten hit at #10 and just missing it on the Mainstream Top-40 list at #11, while reaching the top-40 in Australia (#14), New Zealand (#27), Sweden (#28), and Ireland (#34). That was followed by "Girls & Boys", which rock radio ignored, but landed at #10 on the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart, and topped at #48 on the Hot 100. Instead, alternative rock stations latched on to title cut "The Young and the Hopeless", sending it to #28 on that genre list. Finally, the song "Hold On", which sported a music video that tackled teen suicide, made it to #17 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, and #48 on the Hot 100.
Good Charlotte will be back to the series.
(8/10)
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Good Charlotte appeared on Conan O'Brien to promote the album....
The band performed the song at the Live 8 charity festival in 2005...
Lastly, the Madden twins (who have become big celebs in their own right Down Under) doing an acoustic take at Australia Day in 2013...
Up tomorrrow: a very-soon-to-be-huge rapper heads to Detroit's 8 mile for his first hit.
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