Okay so I’m reading the super old m fly and busted threads so I’m very late to the party. But I still wanted to talk about Charlie, fight-star, busted, Matt and James and that whole drama.
So essentially I think what happened really is that Charlie threw all his rattles out of the pram. Busted were really the gateway into me getting into rock music. I ended up a massive scene kid, and my teenage years were full of rock and metal music. I still love it to this day and I’m 30 now.
the rock scene was never going to take Charlie seriously after being in a pop band… at least not by the people he wanted to take him seriously. But he got way more of a leg up than he would have without busted because people kinda just wanted to rubber neck at the pop guy. He got played and featured on Kerrang for a bit and then forgotten about. I haven’t bought Kerrang since I was about 21 so I wouldn’t know anymore.
i think listening back on busteds music they actually had the foundations of a pretty good pop-punk/ skater/ rock band. As they matured they could have pivoted their music more in that direction especially as the fanbase grew older. Some of their older songs sound like samples for All Time Low, Go: Audio, Simple Plan etc who were all pretty big naughties pop punk bands. A lot of it was more to do with the label they were signed to marketing them more as a pop band than anything.
you also have to remember, all the big rock bands sold out. You go into primark and you see AC/DC, Motörhead and Iron Maiden shirts being sold for £9. My chemical romance had one of their songs featured on Glee during its height of popularity. Paramore would be considered more of a pop band these days and despite always being the butt of the joke Nickleback are a huge band with its roots in rock music. Look at what happened to Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, Arctic Monkeys, Good Charlotte… all big rock bands at the time who ended up mainstream bands with an edgier pop sound.
i remember hayley Williams (Paramore) once saying that when they were playing small little gigs she couldn’t wait to “make it”. Once they’d made it she’d give anything to go back to playing small little gigs again.
Charlie was young and his dreams were of being a rockstar, I think he was a bit deluded by the romance of being a tortured misunderstood artist. I’m not saying he didn’t have a point, some of busteds music was tragic and some of the things they were made to do a bit embaressing (were they ever gunged on a Saturday morning tv show… remember those days!? Yuk!).
also listening to their music, yeah Year 3000 is a bit cringe but listen to blink 182s “another girl another planet”. With a heavier drum and base line would year 3000 really have been much different? Not as a single but the pop punk crowd would have loved that live because it’s really fun.
i know people mentioned disliking songs like All The Way, and I’d agree it’s outdated now, but it gives me early GreenDay vibes (their album Dookie was released in 1994, people nowerdays can’t stand “basket case” because the term is considered offensive) when they sat around writing songs about getting high and masturbation.Is it much different to “I want you bad” by The Offspring? Simple Plans 2004 album was titled “still not getting any”. By todays standards these are all pretty cringe and outdated ideas, it wasn’t even that long ago Robin Thick released “blurred lines”. The first American Pie movie was released in what? 1999? It just feels very comming of age to me which was popular at the time.
I think busteds music could have, perhaps should have, been inspired by more California skater punk pop music, like zebra head, less than jake, gold finger but with a British twist. (My cousin burned Here in your bedroom by goldfinger onto a CD for me at the time and told me it was busted - he’d got it from lime wire. I believed it for years until I discovered the band, I can still hear it lol!)
also what came not long after the split was all that electronic pop rock, Hellogoodbye, owl city… I can’t imagine how much fun they could have had
at the end of the day, the biggest loss with busted is how much potential they did have. They could have told their record company to suck it if they continued taking the band in a direction they weren’t interested in (they wouldn’t be the first, Avenged Sevenfold - American metal band, told Warner brothers to suck it for that exact reason) would they have paid the price for it? Absolutely. But they were already a really famous band and could have created the music they wanted and just literally told everyone they weren’t going to stay somewhere that their creative choices wernt respected.
I think Charlie would have done well to replay Bowling for Soups song “I’m Gay” on repeat. There’s so many pop punk bands that just make stupid songs for sheer fun and joy and they’re one of them. Pull the stick out of your arse Charlie
Also James gives me the creeps these days but I think it’s heartbreaking that he found out about the bands split the way he did. I wish hed stop dating younger girls though.
it’s too late for all these things now but upon reflection as an adult that’s what I see. Not that anyone gives a flying fart about a band that broke up when I was 14 haha
sorry if my spelling is bad it’s hell typing on a phone in these message boxes!
