Good Charlotte [Reissue Bonus Track]

1	Little Things
2	Waldorfworldwide
3	The Motivation Proclamation
4	East Coast Anthem
5	Festival Song
6	Complicated
7	Seasons
8	I Don't Wanna Stop
9	I Heard You
10	The Click
11	Walk By
12	Let Me Go
13	Screamer
14	Change
15	Little Things Multimedia Track

Barnes & Noble

While Good Charlotte don't, by any stretch of the imagination, boldly go where no band has gone before, their wry pop-punk has enough energy and winking good humor to win over all but the most jaded listener. Kicking off with the self-aware riff-fest "The Anthem," the band -- centered around the brotherly VJ tandem that hosts MTV's All Things Rock -- take on the usual targets, with mostly good results. "My Old Man" gets his comeuppance on one sneering rave-up, while frontman Joel Everly pins his heart on his sleeve for the "Riot Girl" of his dreams on a swooning post-Undertones lovefest. "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" is appropriately riled up -- a mood that's suited by a pounding rhythm that owes a bit to Iggy's "Lust for Life" -- while "Emotionless" turns things down a notch, adding strings and a swirling atmospheric arrangement that shows the quintet has the potential to outshine the sometimes monochromatic colorings of their straight-ahead punk rock. David Sprague

All Music Guide

Punk-ska quintet Good Charlotte often sounds like a cross between Green Day and Smash Mouth on its self-titled debut album, and the band members also show evidence of a familiarity with the Clash. The beats come fast and furious, the simple guitar chords noisily fill the middle range, and the vocals are sung with snotty belligerence. "Little Things," the lead-off track, sets the tone; it's about the petty humiliations an outsider can encounter at high school. Elsewhere, the lyrics speak of musical aspirations in the face of 9-to-5 pressures, condemn absent fathers, and berate ex-girlfriends who would rather date football heroes. This is all standard-issue stuff, and in fact the only odd element here is an occasionally expressed religious interest. The band members all give profuse thanks to God in their acknowledgments in the CD booklet, and God also turns up here and there in the lyrics, such as in "Complicated" ("giving thanks to the lord, and I pray every day") and in the hidden bonus track, apparently titled "Thank You Mom" ("You showed me how to love my god"). Religion can turn up in the strangest places, of course, but such remarks seem incongruous among lyrics that casually employ minor vulgarities and have a generally angry tone, performed by a group that favors tattoos and extensive piercings in its photographs. Good Charlotte can't quite be called a CCM group on the basis of its debut album, but the band's songs definitely send mixed messages. [The CD was also released with a bonus track.] William Ruhlmann

Entertainment Weekly

Crosscurrents of anger and optimism rip through Charlottešs heady virgin voyage. The young Annapolis, Md. quintet has an astringent punk style with crafty pop underpinnings. David Hiltbrand