We've Got Some Takes on the Good Charlotte Christmas Album We Haven't Heard

A somewhat dubious study that's made the rounds innumerable times over the past month says that listening to too much Christmas music is bad for your mental health. "No shit," replies a public already subjected to ten billion versions of "Jingle Bell Rock" well before it's cold enough to snow. Yet the holiday cheer has to keep coming because how else can we force humanity to give a shit about each other and also to CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME. Pop-punk and emo bands somehow contribute to this more than many other genres, and while they sometimes produce not only inspired covers but also original, genuine slappers, you can't win all the time.

Throwing their hats into the Yuletide album ring are beloved early 00s mallrat icons Good Charlotte, a band whose most famous song ironically goes "Do you really want to be like them? / Do you really want to be another trend?" Via their official Facebook page, they've announced that they will be releasing their first ever Christmas collection, A GC Christmas: Part 1, on December 8.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Part.

One.

Noisey staffers obviously had a lot of thoughts on this now very pressing matter, so in the spirit of sharing we gathered our brightest pop-punk minds for a roundtable discussion on what this album might be like based off the seconds-long trailer that Good Charlotte posted. None of us have heard the album, but you'd better believe we have some wildly reckless but ultimately thoughtful takes. From our family to yours, have a happy holiday.

Never mind that the Maddens and co. already gave the holiday song tradition a shot with the petty "Christmas by the Phone" in 2002, they're evidently gonna go all in this time. The snippet of Good Charlotte performing Wham!'s deathless "Last Christmas" in a butt-rock style is not very heartening, so this might be enough to reasonably guess that this will be a specific kind of torment. Or it might be delightful! Who knows. I'd like to be optimistic but the pivot to Christmas doesn't always go as well as one hopes. - Phil Witmer, Staff Writer

Pop punk actually has a weirdly good history with Christmas music: mostly it just tends to add mosh parts and jingle bells to existing seasonal songs, which, after six beers—my resting state during the festive period—is A-OK with me. This said, however, I am not sure what I need most is an album full of Christmas covers by Good Charlotte specifically. One Christmas cover is fun; three is a novelty moment in the alt club in your home town. Twelve is beyond the pale. Also: nothing to chill you to the bones like the phrase 'Part 1,' huh? - Lauren O'Neill, Staff Writer

The 20-second clip of “Last Christmas” that fame-agnostic rock music group Good Charlotte uploaded to their Facebook page this afternoon isn’t kitschy or fun or even bad enough to be interesting. It’s dull. It sounds like an computer-generated impression of a pop-punk Christmas knock-off: straightforward, half-paced, half-assed. We’ve had a million of these and we will have a million more because ironic detachment and relived adolescent crushes are comforting while the world burns. Fine. Fuck it. Let Good Charlotte do their thing. I wish them no ill.

What I can’t bear is our desire for that weak kitsch. This is a bad Christmas sweater; it’s the SantaCon of music; it asks us to like it purely because it’s not all that great. And there is good Christmas music out there, stuff that even in our cold, dead, Madden twin-crushing hearts might make us actually feel something beyond the same pang of recognition we used to get from polyphonic ringtones. You want punky holiday music that gives you a sense of nostalgia but has half an ounce of originality behind it? Charly Bliss covered Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” the other day. Kevin Morby did “Blue Christmas” (and we premiered it). DRAM went to the effort of writing an EP himself and duetting with his mom. That surprise collaborative tape from Chance the Rapper and Jeremih last year is still sweet in all the right places.

I dunno. Happy Holidays. Listen to whatever gets you off. But, like the sweaty man-boys of SantaCon and wearers of dumb Christmas sweaters, please keep it to yourself. Don’t fuck up my local bar. - Alex Robert Ross, Weekend Editor

I welcome any and all Christmas music. More Christmas music means we get more chances to enter a new Christmas classic into the canon. - Leslie Horn, Managing Editor

Idk never heard of them - Colin Joyce, Editor

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