Review Summary: I kinda like this album. Lord help me.
I fully expected to hate Good Morning Revival. By all means, I
should hate it. Maybe eventually I
will hate it. For some ungodly reason, I’ve always been able to see past Good Charlotte’s faults and enjoy their music. Oh of course they aren’t innovative or unique and probably everyone reading this already knows that. Anyone could decipher that just by looking at a picture of them from 2004 (although recently Joel seems to be trying his hardest to look like Justin Timberlake. Needless to say, Joel’s only about half as good looking). Despite this, when listening to Good Charlotte I seem to forget about (or perhaps purposely disregard) the criterion I usually require of an album for it to be labeled as “good.” Or maybe I’m just a huge f
ucking mainstream music whore and that’s why I like them. Yeah, it’s probably that.
Good Charlotte started out as a happy-go-lucky little pop-punk band with their semi-hit “Little Things” from their self-titled album. Soon after they experienced the first taste of success, they released The Young and the Hopeless, perhaps better known as the al bum were Good Charlotte “sold out.” Basically that whole album was a mega hit (half of the songs were singles) and it completely turned many listeners away from the band because of its watered down pop sound. In 2004 they put out Chronicles of Life and Death which was, in many ways, a departure for them. I was certainly eager to see how their fourth album Good Morning Revival would stack up against Chronicles, which is easily their best album. Honestly, it doesn’t live up (I bet you’re so surprised). But that’s okay because it’s still an alright album. Anyway, if I considered Chronicles of Life and Death a departure for the band, then Christ what the hell do I think this is? It’s different from everything they’ve ever done, but at the same time it’s still
oh-so Good Charlotte. Good Charlotte have always
tried, although not always
succeeded, to set themselves apart from everyone else. You won’t hear that in the singles, however, because whoever chose their singles picked the worst possible ones. It’s something you would notice only if you chose to look beyond the music videos and radio singles, which sadly most people chose not to do. I can’t say I blame them though.
A few months ago when I heard “Keep Your Hands Off My Girl,” the first song released from the album, I was horrified. I wasn’t expecting a genius piece of work or something that would blow my mind. Hell, I didn’t even really expect a good song. I would have been content with an average one. But dear Lord I was certainly not expecting some sh
itty dance-pop song. For three minutes and twenty-five seconds we have to sit through Joel’s tone-deaf singing and terrible lyrics. Seriously, “I got brass knuckles hangin’ from my neck and my chain”? As if that wasn’t bad enough already, they completely rip off Gym Class Heroes in the bridge. Let me say that again:
They rip off Gym Class Heroes. There’s only one redeemable factor about the song, and that’s the falsetto “ah-ha’s” in the chorus. “Keep Your Hands Off My Girl” is essentially a club remix of every song on The Young and the Hopeless. Oh and as a bonus track they slapped a remix of the song onto the album.
Christ.
To be fair, that song is easily the worst this album has to offer. With their previous two albums, the band seems to have developed a fancy for intro tracks. On The Young and the Hopeless they gave us a two minute rocker, and on The Chronicles of Life and Death the intro was a strange but cool orchestral piece complete with Japanese choir vocals. Two completely different intros, and this album continues that trend. “Good Morning Revival” is basically Joel’s voice swimming in synth and keyboards, two things that haven’t been explored too much by the band before. It’s a nice intro, but it really serves no point at all, except that it leads right into the second track. They could have done without it. Then again, they could have done without a lot of things on Good Morning Revival.
The first thing that’s going on the chopping block is Joel’s voice. On Good Charlotte’s first two albums, Joel’s voice was good. It was slightly nasal at times, but for the most part he demonstrated that he could at least put forth a decent job on a regular basis. Then on Chronicles of Life and Death, he completely took his vocals to the next level. Even I, who liked his voice to begin with, was greatly surprised that he could sing that well. I expected great things from him in the future. Enter Good Morning Revival. I just don’t know what happened. For essentially half the album, Joel sings an octave too high. Songs that had the potential to be good were ruined by his singing, most notably “The River.” The band wrote a great, catchy chorus, but Joel ruined that by singing in that grating, high voice. Oh and on top of that, Avenged Sevenfold singer Matt Shadows’ singing in the second verse is entirely laughable. If that’s how he’ll be singing on his band’s upcoming album, then I think I’ll pass. Despite my criticisms, as I have said before, I am somehow able to look past it and enjoy the songs that Good Charlotte wrote for this album. That’s the magic of Good Charlotte man!
Anyway, I said that Joel sings too high for half of the album, so what about the other half? He actually does pretty well, although it’s still a step down from his work on Chronicles. On “Victims of Love” Joel returns to form and sings lower, at least in the verses. In the chorus, he actually throws in some falsetto here and there and, get this, it sounds good! Too bad I can’t say the same for his other high singing, like in “March On.” “Where Would We Be Now?” is one of the best vocal performances of his career; his singing in the chorus is fantastic. Since Good Charlotte made me sit through a step down in Joel’s vocals, I hoped that maybe they would at least slightly rectify it with some wicked harmonizing. One thing that I grew to love about Good Charlotte was twin brothers Joel and Benji Madden’s vocal harmonizing. Although they overdid it a bit on Chronicles, it was still pleasant to listen to, and Benji’s lower range paired perfectly with Joel’s higher range. But on Good Morning Revival, they barely did it at all. All of the harmony comes from an overdub of Joel’s voice. There’s no contrast to go along with his voice, and Benji’s harmonizing would have been quite welcome on most of these songs.
Good Charlotte’s lyrics have been widely criticized by pretty much everyone. “Lifestyles of the rich and the famous, they’re always complaining, always complaining.” Sound familiar? Yeah those lyrics are terrible. Well unfortunately I now have to inform you that there are lyrics on Good Morning Revival that are actually worse than that. When I reviewed The Young and the Hopeless, one of my criticisms for the song “Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous” was that the lyrics were so ironic. Well they did the same thing with “Misery” on Good Morning Revival. The lyrics basically say that so many people out there are fake and empty and all they do is conform to trends, etc. Well gosh darnit Good Charlotte, take a look in the mirror. I like you, but even I’m willing to admit that you’re merely a passing trend. Hopefully they’ll stay away from lyrics that could be interpreted as ironic on future albums. “All Black” contains the worst lyrics of their career, as Joel drops lines like “Take a look at my life, all black. Take a look at my clothes, all black. Like Johnny Cash, all black,” and my personal favorite “All black like the seats of my Cadillac.” Fortunately not all the lyrics are that insipid. “The River” has some great lines, especially in the chorus, which plays up to the religious sensibilities that have always been present in Good Charlotte’s music. Talking of salvation and deliverance, the chorus says “Baptized in the river, I’ve seen a vision of my life and I wanna be delivered.” The verse lyrics are decent, but the second verse, as stated previously, is mauled by Matt Shadows. “Something Else” speaks of everyone wanting something else, perhaps a “seat in first class.” Well I think they could have thought of something a bit better than that, but oh well. All in all, Good Morning Revival is an extremely hit or miss album lyrically. I wasn’t expecting Neil Gaiman, but I at least wanted to see some lyrics as good as “Emotionless” from The Young and the Hopeless or “Mountain” from Chronicles of Life and Death.
A lot of bands nowadays seem to try to cover for their lack of musical aptitude by drenching their songs with keyboards and synthesizers (Hellogoodbye, I'm looking at you). Good Charlotte have always been a rather straight-forward band, sacrificing uniqueness for catchiness. Hey that’s not a bad thing considering their genre right? So why did they feel the need to conform to this latest trend of dance pop? Guitarist Billy Martin has always shown a slight knack for soloing and Benji Madden is pretty awesome at strumming those power chords, so why overshadow them with watered down club hopping music? Objectively, maybe it was a good thing after all, because when we do hear the guitars, the riffs are pretty bland and they don’t play anything that catches the ear. Good Charlotte have never been able to keep a drummer (they’ve had a different one for every album), and I don’t even know the name of the guy who plays on this album, but he isn’t worth mentioning anyway. The biggest hit musically was the fact that you can’t hear the bass. Paul Thomas is a great bassist, and his quirky basslines on all three of Good Charlotte’s previous albums were a joy to listen to, especially in an era where the bass is drowned out of most albums. On Good Morning Revival, he’s nowhere to be found. I wish I could give as much analysis on the music as I did the vocals and lyrics, but there isn’t much more to say. Musically, Good Morning Revival is the definition of conformity.
All those words, and I don’t even know what to rate the album yet. To an extent, I definitely like it. There are some great songs here, but for every great moment, there’s an awful one to counter it. When I heard The Chronicles of Life and Death, I was extremely excited because of the awesome direction that the band was going in. I had no idea that they would release something like Good Morning Revival. On one hand, I respect them for trying something different, but the respect is limited because they really didn’t succeed in what they wanted to do. It took them a long time to record this, and I certainly expected something more. Or maybe that’s the problem. Am I expecting too much from Good Charlotte? Certainly they haven’t showed much over the years other than catchy choruses and some minimal musicianship, but I can’t help but want more from them. I’m not even sure why I think they’re capable of giving me more (maybe Chronicles was the best they had in them), but all the same, I do. That is why this is so disappointing. I refuse to think about how sad it is that I am actually
sincerely disappointed by a Good Charlotte album.
Ugh.
