Good Charlotte

Good Charlotte embodied the vulnerable tone and underdog vibe of the 2000s pop-punk movement. Led by twin brothers Joel and Benji Madden, the Maryland band formed in the mid-’90s, after the then-school students saw their idols the Beastie Boys in concert. With friend Billy Martin joining on guitar, the nascent band debuted with a 2000 self-titled album before finding greater success with the multiplatinum full-lengths The Young and the Hopeless in 2002 and The Chronicles of Life and Death in 2004. These albums resonated because of honest songs that tackled the pain of being a teenage misfit with a rough home life (“Little Things”), poked fun at gender stereotypes (“Girls & Boys”) and encouraged outsiders to stay positive (“The Anthem”). As the decade progressed and musical trends shifted, Good Charlotte wisely evolved, leading to songs influenced by hip-hop, electronic music and sleeker pop-rock. Since then, the Maddens have applied that ambition to multiple business endeavours outside of the band—Joel was a judge on The Voice Australia, and the brothers are entrepreneurs and work in artist management. Good Charlotte remain focused on trenchant lyrical material, however: the affecting 2018 album Generation Rx was followed in 2020 by the single “Last December”, a song about the complications of grieving a friend’s death.