...Eh, I can do the other two reviews over the next two days, I guess.
So, if you were a kid or a teenager in the UK in the early 2000's and listened to popular music, you would have inevitably been introduced to both Busted and McFly, but, for the benefit for the people who aren't familiar with either band, time for a quick summery of them for your benefit. Both bands are pop rock (although pop punk also works to describe them) bands who formed in the early 2000's (Busted in 2002 and McFly in 2003) and who were HUGE in the early 2000's. While Busted fizzled out in January 2005 due to the departure of Charlie Simpson to focus on Fightstar (a band who are somewhat popular in underground alternative rock circles who went on hiatus in 2010 when the members decided to focus on their solo projects, although the band are apparently due to reunite to work on their fourth album), McFly are still around today, although their popularity is somewhat diminished in recent years due to the relative decrease in mainstream popularity of pop punk (and rock in general, come to think of it). McBusted are basically a supergroup formed of all of the members of McFly (Tom Fletcher, Danny Jones, Dougie Poynter and Harry Judd) and Matt Willis and James Bourne (the other two members of Busted, aside of Charlie Simpson). McBusted was originally going to be just a chance for Busted and McFly to do songs together for the first time in about a decade, as Busted took McFly on their first proper tour, but they must have had a lot of fun doing that tour, because they opted to make a record together, which seems to also mark the first time Matt Willis has been in a recording studio since 2006 (when he released his solo album, Don't Let It Go To Waste), from what I've been able to find about Willis' post-Busted career (although, in fairness, he hasn't exactly been quiet since then: he's had a career in theatre and television since then). Busted released two studio albums (technically three, since they released a compilation in 2004, but I'm not counting compilations) before their disbandment, Busted in 2002 and A Present For Everyone in 2003, while McFly have five albums out (Room On The 3rd Floor in 2004, Wonderland in 2005, Motion In The Ocean in 2006, Radio:ACTIVE in 2008 and Above The Noise in 2010) and are apparently working on a sixth album at the minute, although it's now over a year since it should have been out, so I'm not sure what's happened to that...my suspicion is that it got repurposed into the McBusted album, but I'm not familiar with what's been going on in the McFly camp in recent...erm, years.
Oh yeah, and there was a post-Busted project named Son Of Dork. Just throwing that out there because I like their song "Ticket Outta Loserville".
Anyway, McBusted officially formed on the first of November last year and went on an arena tour in April and May (and I'm STILL pissed that I missed the Newcastle gig for various reasons, but that's another discussion for another time). So not only is this the first single that has been released with a real connection to the Busted name in over a decade (the last single under the Busted name was the (fairly forgettable, if you ask me) "She Wants To Be Me" in 2004, while the first McBusted song was a mix of a song intended for McFly's sixth album, so I don't think it really counts as new material), but it's the first song by a band which has the legacy of Busted AND McFly on its shoulders.
...You know what? Before this came out, I have said Pink Floyd's new album was the music project with the most pressure on its shoulders to do well, but I think this might top that pretty easily! A HUGE number of people in their 20's (there's probably a few people in their late teens and early 30's who will also want to listen to this, but most people will have been teenagers when Busted broke up) are going to be listening to this and expecting it to sound like something out of Busted and McFly's early albums. I've swear, you'd find less pressure in a pressure cooker!
So, I guess the question isn't "Does this live up to the impossible standards it's being held up against?" (I doubt it would, even if it was the pinnacle of pop punk perfection), but "How does this song sound in and of itself?" Well, let me break this down and see whether it's an enjoyable song or not. If you do want to hear the song yourself, then just click the video below!
Before I start, a comment about the video: why the Guitar Hero/Rock Band rip off effect for the video? OK, I'll be fair, both games are known for being a haven for fans of rock music who can't play actual guitars, so it works for an air guitar reference, but the whole rhythm game genre has basically died off in the mainstream due to over-saturation in recent years, so it's actually a somewhat outdated reference by this point. I do think it works, but the reference is going to seem a bit outdated for most people. It's like referencing O-Zone's "Dragostea din tei" now: very few people are going to remember it and, if they do, they won't think it's clever or funny!
...You know, the Numa Numa song?
...Why do I hear crickets chirruping?
Anyway, moving on from that, the first thing I guess I have to confirm is what genre this song is, since people familiar with McFly's most recent album (which had a more electropop sound compared to their other albums) might be forgiven for expecting this to sound like that album. Put your fears to rest, if you're concerned: this song does have a few elements that might bring to mind pop music, but the song is very much rooted in pop rock (or pop punk, depending on how you view it), right down to having actual rock instruments in the music. It's arguably a tiny bit more on the pop side than the rock side, but, compared to a lot of bands today who are called pop rock, but sound indistinguishable from a regular pop act, this slightly outdated style of pop rock is actually more worthy of the term than a lot of so-called pop rock acts today, so I'm not going to complain too much!
The song itself is...well, I found it somewhat unimpressive when I first heard it, but it did actually grow on me once I realised that I was listening to it demanding it to impress me and wasn't giving it a real fair chance. The music is nothing especially complex, but I wasn't expecting music complexity (if you're listening to pop punk and modern pop rock expecting complex musicianship, you're probably looking in the wrong place), so I'm OK with that. The chorus is rather catchy, the verses are fairly enjoyable...it's all rather enjoyable to listen to, I'm not going to lie! True, I feel like I'm basically waiting for the chorus to start up again when the verses are happening, but they're hardly bad in their own right: the chorus is just so catchy and enjoyable that the verses just don't stand out so much when faced up against that. I have to admit that I hear more of Busted musically in this song than I hear of McFly, but, in my defence, I'm not hugely familiar with McFly outside of a few songs, so I'm probably not the best judge of that one. That said, I think it is worth pointing out that Busted have been functionally dead for nearly a decade now, so a new song that sounds like Busted was long overdue. With that in mind, it was actually a very smart decision to pick a song which sounds like Busted to be the first single, as it gets the old grumpy sods like me who never bothered to follow McFly (although, in my case, because I didn't buy CDs back then) and weren't happy about the death of Busted to get on board with the whole McBusted thing.
My personal issue is with the lyrics, as there are a few points in it where I was wanting to roll my eyes at some of the lyrics. For a start, the whole awesomeness of the song's music is a bit undercut by the fact that the whole song is about playing air guitar. When your song sounds like it could have been written by Bill & Ted, you might want to rethink it (...well, either that or it's EXCELLENT! *guitar solo* (come on, how could I resist that reference?)). The other sticking points for me are referencing the poor choice of singing Beyonce at a karaoke (read that whatever way you want to)...and choosing to reference "Crazy In Love" (seriously, that song came out when I was almost ten, guys! Could you not have picked a more recent song by her to reference, I think most non-Beyonce fans are going to have forgotten that song...some because they don't WANT to remember that song!) and, in the second chorus (and the final one), saying "Jimmy Page and Brian May/won't believe the way that I can play/my air guitar" (...erm, if they can play ACTUAL guitar, I don't think they're going to be impressed with you for playing a guitar that is made up of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and dreams, with trace amounts of noble gasses and self-delusion). While hardly bad lyrically, it does stop me from really enjoying the song when I get to those points. I've read some comments that say the song appeals a bit too much to a teenage mentality in the lyrics and, while I wouldn't go QUITE that far myself with describing the lyrics, I do have to say that they aren't quite as mature as I'd expect. But hey, pop punk was never the most mature style of music (lyrically, at least), so I can let that slide.
The performances on the song are rather good, I have to say! Everyone puts forward a performance that is at least respectable and, while I think the absence of Charlie's vocals does make it feel like something is missing from here (Charlie's more rough voice was somewhat distinctive in Busted's music), there is genuinely little that I could reasonably have asked the guys to have done in the song which they didn't already do. I think my only real issue is that, because of the way the voices have been mixed, it's very tough to tell who is singing which lines of the song. Maybe it's because I'm not familiar enough with McFly to recognise Tom's voice very well, but I just feel that everyone ends up sounding more or less the same, which is a bit of an issue for me.
The production is very much in line with modern production, so you know what I'm going to say: it seems a bit too loudly mastered for me. The bass mixing could have been a bit louder in the chorus, but, aside from that, I have no real issues with the bass, surprisingly! The mixing, as I've mentioned earlier, seems a bit odd on the vocals, as it's hard to tell everyone apart properly, although I accept that might just be me.
So, overall, what do I think of this song? Well, for all my jokes earlier, I have to say that it's actually rather good, once you let it grow on you! Yes, this is very much going to be something that'll appeal to the pop punk fans...but you know what? For once, I'm going to let my nostalgia take hold and say that, if you have any fondness for catchy hooks, this song is really, REALLY worth taking about three and a half minutes of your time to listen to. This isn't going to win over anyone who has no tolerance for anything even faintly poppy (which is probably all of my readers...), but, if you can accept that a simple and catchy song is at least a good way to pass the time, then you should really check this out and see what you make of it. McBusted seem set to release an absolute cracker of an album, if you ask me...and I look forward to hearing it already!
Final Rating: 8 Out Of 10
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