SINGLE: Good Charlotte - Keep Your Hands Off My Girl

Oh dear.
Good Charlotte used to be a fun enough band, shovelling us fun enough pop songs in the form of Girls & Boys, The Young & The Hopeless and of course, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. But they decided to stray from the formula, which if you know what you’re doing will equal success. But they didn’t sound like they even knew what planet they were on, and produced the rubbish Chronicles of Life and Death. Perhaps the following album, Good Morning Revival, would return to the same pop-punk formula or do something different well?

The answer is in the shape of the first single, Keep Your Hands Off My Girl, and what you hear whilst listening is indeed the case of the latter option. But… they have no clue, unfortunately. The said track pumps into life with a stylish Nine Inch Nails bass riff, and is then killed by the most clichéd line spoken in the most unconvincing way: ‘let the record play’. Madden, I wish you an early grave.

The verse continues like this, with the worst possible lyrics before the chorus fires off – and for a second, and entire second, the record sounds good. This is in the form of a harmonised ‘ah-hah’ over a well-produced power chord run-up. ‘Keep Your Hands Off My Girl’ is the line which the chorus is hinged upon, and because of that it fails.

The production of the instrumentation itself is great – thick techno guitars, creepy synths. But the singing is not similarly inspired, with turgid metaphor for its lyrical content and neither any humour in the vocals itself. It entirely, and utterly, ruins the song which is a shame as its music has enough potential.

I do admire Good Charlotte for them having balls to try something away from their previous style. But instead of allowing this to happen naturally as artists, this track is indeed the sound of a band that has forced themselves out of a pigeon hole, only to have a substantial loss to the quality of their songs. If Keep Your Hands Off My Girl was the humorous floor-filler that it rightfully should have been, even standing with the overloading of lyrical hooks, and Good Charlotte would have had something to be quite proud of.
Overall – 3.5 / 10
Get it? – No. Fucking neck and chain.