the top 40 in Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and the UK. Background and production Good Charlotte released their second album, The Young and the Hopeless, in October 2002. Three of the album's singles—"Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous", "Girls & Boys", and "The Anthem"—shifted the group from modern rock to mainstream top 40 radio. As a result, The Young and the Hopeless debuted in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 chart, having sold 117,000 copies in its first week of release. It eventually sold over three million copies in the US. Following its release, the band spent the next two years touring, which included two US arena tours. In August 2003, the group began assembling songs for their next album. They planned to write while on tour between September and November, and were expected to start recording after it ended. In January 2004, the group embarked on a tour of Japan. Their label Epic/Daylight Records told the band they would be going into the studio to record shortly after the tour ended. On hearing this, vocalist Joel Madden was unsure what to write about saying, "We were just in this whirlwind bubble." He flew back to the US and travelled from his home in San Francisco to Los Angeles. Recording for their next album took place at Barefoot Studios in Hollywood, California. Eric Valentine was the producer and engineer assisted by Trevor Whatever and Chris Roach. The group entered the studio with 16–18 songs. Recording sessions began in March and ended in June. Matt Radosevich handled the editing, programming, additional engineering and played piano on "The Truth". The strings conduction and arrangements were done by David Campbell, along with Valentine on the latter composition. Michele Ito and Chikako Horii sang on "Once Upon a Time: The Battle of Life and Death". John Feldmann tracked additional guitars for "I Just Wanna Live". Valentine mixed and mastered the recordings, except for "Meet My Maker", which was mixed by Jacquire King with assistance from Andy Hunt. Composition The group faced "a lot of criticism from all sides" and felt out of place in the current pop scene and the pop punk genre they had come from. The band's members internalised this while they made the album; Joel Madden said they were "ready to move on and make a statement", wanting to do "something grand." Their label wanted a more marketable release,