How does it compare to the artist's other releases
Outstanding
Value for Money
Advantages:
legally listen to all tracks for free online, great album
Disadvantages:
none
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
* Who are Busted? * Busted, for anyone who doesn’t know, are a three-piece pop band, Matt, 20, James, 20 and Charlie, 18 from London, who play their own instruments and write their own songs. Busted are a pop band and they write pop music and they admit that, but sometimes fans and Germans (they won a rock award in Germany) call them a rock band because they very rarely perform without instruments and other pop bands tend to focus on their singing. Rock fans tend to hate Busted because they think that Busted are trying to be rockstars. Busted are influenced by rock artists, but also enjoy pop music.
* Achievements * They were signed to their record label, Universal Island in March 2002 and since have released 5 top 3 singles including 2 number 1s, a multi-platinum selling debut album and had a sell-out UK tour. Their second UK tour, ‘A Ticket For Everyone Tour’ will take place in March 2004, where 4 extra dates have had to be added due to popular demand. They have become huge in the UK, Germany, Japan and Australia and are going to have a try at America in May 2004. Good luck to them. Their second album, A Present For Everyone, which I am reviewing now, was released on 17th November 2003 and sold 27,000 copies in it’s first day. 1,000 more copies than Michael Jackson’s greatest hits album. Michael Jackson and his album got a lot of publicity during the week so it entered the album chart at number 1 and Busted’s album only reached number 2.
* Album cover * The cover of Busted’s album is a picture of them pulling faces at the camera. The message they are trying to put across is that they’re not taking themselves too seriously. The Busted logo (a red rectangle with Busted written in) is printed at the bottom of the album cover and ‘A PRESENT FOR EVERYONE’ is written in small white letters at the top.
* The Inlay * The inlay includes photos of Busted, lyrics to all of the songs on their album, individual thankyou’s and band thankyou’s, information about each of the songs (who wrote them, producers etc.) and information on how to buy their ringtones, logos and picture messages.
* The tracks * There are 15 tracks on the album, all written or co-written by Busted themselves.
1 Air Hostess This is the first track on the album and was going to be the second single to be released from the album, but the second release is now Who's David. This track is likely to be released as a single at some point. It was written by Matt, James and Charlie (Busted) and a guy called Tom from a new band called McFly (Yes, named after Marty McFly, the guy from the 80s film, Back To The Future! McFly will launch their music careers in March 2004 and will be a support act on Busted’s tour). The song is about fit air hostesses. “Air hostesses on Virgin Atlantic are always really fit” Charlie says. Air hostess is a fun, cheeky song with daft lyrics such as ‘I messed my pants, when we flew over France’ and ‘You didn’t know I’m in a band, In England people know me, One photo’s worth a hundred grand.’ This song has a very strong bass guitar and drum sound and is a typical Busted song. “If you had to listen to one song that would describe Busted, this would be it,” says Matt.
2 Crashed The Wedding Written by James and Tom from McFly, this was the first single to be released from the album and it entered the charts at number 1. As the title suggests, it’s about crashing a wedding (like Alfie from Eastenders at Kat’s wedding only a bit more exaggerated). It is a guitar based song with fun lyrics ‘The ring she got was lame, She couldn’t take the pain, She didn’t want a silly second name’.
3 Who’s David Without a question mark, this offering of bass guitar- driven pop with an awesome tune and even greater lyrics and vocals was written by James and Tom from McFly. A song about being insecure about a girl seeing other men. ‘You left your phone so I invaded, I hated what I saw, You stupid lying ***** who’s David? Some guy who lives next door’. This is one of the stronger tracks from the album. It is the second single to be released from this album and it will be released on 16th February the day before the Brit Awards 2004 where Busted will perform this track and they are nominated for 3 awards.
4 She Wants To Be Me Busted teamed up with The Matrix producers (who worked with Avril Lavigne) in LA to write this song. It’s another guitar-based song about, as the title suggests, a girlfriend who wants to be them. The lyrics are cheeky ‘She’s so obsessed with me that she stands up to pee’. This is another song with a great tune and is amongst the best from this album.
5 3am One of Charlie’s two favourite songs from the album (the other is Air Hostess). This, again, was written by Busted and The Matrix producers. It’s about problems in a relationship. As soon as I heard the song for the first time the tune instantly reminded me of another song (not by Busted). (If anyone has heard this song and knows what the song it reminds me of might be, please let me know.) This is one of the more serious songs from the album lacking in cheeky lyrics, but still managing to include some ‘And now you’re driving in your car, But you won’t get far coz your car is ****’.
6 Falling For You If you’ve ever heard the song Still Waiting by Sum 41 you’re sure to agree that the guitar at the beginning of this song has that exact tune, but magazine reviews I have seen tend to compare this song to songs by blink 182. This song is another of my favourites with that awesome sum 41 style tune and great lyrics all the way through ‘Next week my mum’s away so now my future’s brightened, I’d ask to have you stay if I wasn’t so frightened’, ‘…I just can’t sleep at night, My bed is wet don’t know how, Will someone please turn out the light,’ and ‘You showed up at my door just like in a teen movie, I said are you the ***** I paid to come and ***** me’ This fantastic offering was written by James, Charlie and Tom from McFly and gives Matt, James and Charlie the chance to show off their vocals.
7 That Thing You Do This was again, written by James, Charlie and Tom from McFly. “We almost gave this one to McFly to record,” Charlie explains. It’s a good song to sing along to. It has a catchy chorus and is one of Busted’s more serious love songs. There is a surprise at the end when you think the track is finished - a guitar is played quietly on the right speaker and then Charlie says ‘yeah’ on the left speaker.
8 Over Now This song has a particularly good chorus and tune and is another love song about the end of a relationship. It is a ballad written by James and Tom from McFly.
9 Fake Matt teamed up with Guy Chambers to write this fantastic song. Guy Chambers, for those who don’t already know wrote Angels with Robbie Williams. Matt is really proud of this song. “I'll let you make your own mind up, but its one of my personal favourites,” he says. The lyrics, tune and vocals are great. This is another of my favourites from the album. ‘What am I gonna do now my game’s up, Can’t get her off that’s kinda rough, She better not tell my mates today, So baby tell me now do I need to measure, Cause I’m feeling under pressure, I’m just hoping that the fear will go away, Don’t wanna be a fake,’ – the chorus has a wicked tune. You can’t turn this track off half way through –it’s that good.
10 Meet You There This song is yet another with a fantastic tune that makes you want to sing really loudly – which can often be unfortunate for neighbours. It is one of the slower songs on the album. Unlike most tracks, there is no bass guitar played on this track. It shows off their vocal talent. James and Charlie, who wrote the song together, get a verse each to sing on this track, but Matt doesn’t have a solo part. You can hear him in the chorus though.
11 Why Written by Charlie and his big brother Will, this ballad starts off very slow, but then the bass guitar begins in the chorus and it gets quicker. This is Charlie’s solo track. It is also the longest track on the album, lasting 4 minutes and 47 seconds.
12 Loner In Love This track is again, written by James and Tom from McFly. It is another of Busted’s humorous tracks with lyrics such as ‘The next day I ran into your current boyfriend, told him what we did last night, before my story had even got to the end, he challenged me to a fight, I ran in slow motion, away from him, but he caught up with me and kicked my teeth in, now I’ve got no chance cause I can’t even grin’. This ballad has humorous lyrics and a great tune.
13 Better Than This Better Than This is another track, which Matt wrote with Guy Chambers. This is Matt’s solo track, which is about expecting more from a relationship. It has a cracking chorus and it’s probably a track you’ll turn the volume up to.
14 Can’t Break Thru One of the longest tracks on the album is this ballad co-written by James. The beginning is similar to a track from Good Charlotte’s second album called Wondering where special effects have been added to the vocals. The song has a good tune and is all sung by James.
15 Nerdy I love the guitar at the beginning of this track. The track is about being a nerd! The chorus sums up what the song is about ‘Just because I’m nerdy and my friends are thirty, doesn’t mean that I swing that way, if you’ve got complications and a reputation, wouldn’t want to get in your way but anyway’. The track was written by James, Charlie and Tom from McFly and wraps up the album nicely. Hehe!
* My view * Overall I think this is the best pop album I’ve ever heard. All of the songs are catchy and it’s all killer no filler! It beats their debut album, Busted, which is also fantastic. Charlie agrees, “I much prefer the sound of this album to the last one.” Some of the lyrics I put in the op seem a bit dodgy, but you’d have to listen to the tracks to understand the way the songs go. For example, ‘You left your phone so I invaded, I hated what I saw, You stupid lying ***** who’s David? Some guy who lives next door’ from Who’s David sounds ridiculous but if you heard the tune it would make more sense. I think Busted deserve a chance from everyone and I think the album does live up to it’s name and does have something for everyone on it.
* Where to get the album * You can buy the album for £8.99 on Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk) or it is in Woolworths, HMV, WHSmith, Asda, Tesco and other stores for around £12.99.
* Listen to the full album for free * If you are unsure that you’ll like the album then you could legally listen to every single album track on the Internet for FREE, and no I don’t mean half a track or just a clip I mean the FULL track - every song on the album!
* How? * To listen to the FULL album visit www.busted.com and when the page is properly downloaded fully a pop-up thing will appear headed The Official Site of Busted – Universal Records – Microsoft Internet Explorer. It will have a large photo of the album cover and a banner saying ‘Plus Click here to check out the album listening party and hear all the tracks in full!’. Click where it says ‘Click here’ and you will need to enter your name, DOB, e-mail address, gender and whether or not you want to receive emails about Busted. This takes 20 seconds and then the list of tracks appear, just click the one you’d like to hear and it will take less than a minute to open on your computer. I expected it to take a lot longer, but was pleasantly surprised. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.
Thanks a lot for reading. I’m impressed if you got this far. If you feel I could improve the op in any way please let me know!
Quotes from band members are taken from e-mails from the band and from sneak magazine!
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How does it rate alongside the competition
Outstanding
Cover / Inlay Design and Content
Outstanding
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