we were just having fun, and trying to do the best we could to achieve that goal". In 2016, Benji Madden said of the album: "We’d gone out into the world and felt both the positive and the negative. And on The Young And The Hopeless we decided to really take a direction and stand up for ourselves, in a way." Composition Discussing the album name, Joel Madden said; The Young and the Hopeless "felt like the generation we were in ... I think it was the way a generation felt in the early 2000s. Everything started to change over." All of the songs on the album were written by the Madden brothers, except for "A New Beginning" and "The Anthem". The former was written by Benji Madden and Valentine, and the latter was written by the Madden brothers and Goldfinger frontman John Feldmann. All of the songs were arranged by the band, except "A New Beginning", which was arranged by Benji Madden and Valentine. Musically, the album has been described as pop punk, and compared with the work of Blink-182, Green Day, and MxPx. With the opening track "A New Beginning", the group wanted to make something different. According to Joel Madden, they adored the work of Danny Elfman and wanted to emulate his style, specifically in the vein of The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). "The Anthem" was written after producers of an unspecified movie asked for a song to include on the soundtrack. According to Benji Madden, the producers wanted a song similar to "Little Things", asking; "Can you write another loser anthem?" The brothers wrote it with Feldmann because they loved Goldfinger and wanted to work with him before they worked with Valentine and Don Gilmore. The movie producers used "Little Things" instead; as a result, "The Anthem" features the lyric "Another loser anthem". The latter's bridge was written as a joke and was intended to be replaced later but was left on the album. "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous" features the drum motif of "Lust for Life" (1977) by Iggy Pop, and is social commentary about the freedom celebrities have. While "The Story of My Old Man" is predominantly about the Madden brothers' father, it references Benji Madden's experience with alcohol. They briefly considered not releasing the track, which they found embarrassing, but they included it on the album because they felt their fans might