British Phonographic Industry (BPI), as well as two times platinum by Music Canada (MC). The album and "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous" were nominated for several awards, with the latter winning the Kerrang! Award for Best Single. The album appeared on best-of lists by Rock Sound and Rolling Stone, and earned the Classic Album Award at the Alternative Press Music Awards. Background and recording After leaving their home state of Maryland, Good Charlotte were signed to Epic imprint Daylight Records and released their debut album, Good Charlotte, in September 2000. It did not sell as well as the label hoped, and the group were nearly dropped. By the end of 2000, vocalist Joel Madden said they had a lot of new material ready for their next album, and had been performing "The Story of My Life" by April 2001. The minor success of "Little Things", coupled with appearing at Warped Tour and touring alongside Blink-182 in 2001 helped increase their popularity. Sometime afterwards, drummer Aaron Escolopio left the group to join his brother's band Wakefield. He was replaced by Nate Foutz of Vroom, who stayed with the group for six weeks. Dusty Bill was then engaged to play drums; he remained with the group for a year. While promoting the self-titled album, the group met Eric Valentine at a show, and decided to work with him on their next record. Valentine, who acted as producer, said he was interested in the band because of their writing, which he felt was "a little deeper" than that of their contemporaries. Madden said they "wanted a hit record, to do something big and important ... and that’s where [Valentine] came in". Recording of The Young and the Hopeless took place at Barefoot Studios in Los Angeles, California, between February 1 and May 1, 2002. Valentine often mediated between the band members, who would bicker during pre-production. Josh Freese of The Vandals was brought in as a session member; Joel Madden knew Freese from touring and asked him to drum on the album. Valentine and Ken Allardyce acted as engineers, while Jason Slater, Dave Cooley and Wes Seidman did additional editing. David Campbell conducted strings, which were arranged by Valentine and Eric Campbell and engineered by Nate Kunkel. Valentine mixed the recordings and Brian Gardner mastered them at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Los Angeles. Benji Madden said, "Nothing about that record was pre-meditated,