For many of us in our early twenties, Busted were an important part of our childhood. Their fusion of pop and punk was unlike anything else on the British music scene at the time and their iconic guitar jumps inspired living room dance routines nationwide. They saw huge success in a very small amount of time, and rolled out classic hits including Year 3000, Crashed The Wedding and Air Hostess before their split in 2004 after just four years together.<\/p>\n
In 2013, McFly and Busted united to form supergroup McBusted, and they toured together performing songs by both of the bands to sold out venues across the country. But there was something missing; arguably the most popular member of Busted, Charlie Simpson. Fans who, like me, used to get heart palpitations just thinking about his bushy eyebrows and baggy jeans, were disappointed that our beloved Charlie wouldn\u2019t be joining the remaining two members of Busted, but it was hardly a surprise. Simpson triggered the split by leaving to focus on the band Fightstar, and later claimed that his time in Busted was \u2018unfulfilling\u2019. Simpson went on to release one solo album and four with Fightstar, but nothing matched the success and fame that Busted allowed him to taste.<\/p>\n
As a huge fan of Busted at their height of fame, I was extremely sceptical about this album and reformation. There was no major publicity or hype for the album and it seems very unnecessary and unwarranted after how Simpson left the band and his refusal to reunite until now. I listened Night Driver with Guy Buttle, a fellow ex-Busted fan who has followed Charlie Simpson since his split from the band.<\/p>\n
\u2018This isn’t Busted. This is Charlie Simpson with synth in the background.\u2019 A couple of songs in, it\u2019s all sounding a bit wannabe The 1975. There\u2019s no doubt that this is a lifetime away from the loose tie-wearing, guitar wielding teens we loved.<\/p>\n
As the album goes along I\u2019m left feeling disappointed. It\u2019s not awful by any means, and some songs like Coming Home and On What You\u2019re On may even prove popular with a younger audience, but it\u2019s definitely not an album made for Busted nostalgia.<\/p>\n
Simpson\u2019s roaring vocals are definitely what sets this album apart, as well as harking back to his days as a teenage heartthrob. Guy tells me \u2018Fightstar was a more rock version of Busted, and they were really good. Then Charlie Simpson did some stuff on his own which worked because his voice was the best bit about Busted and Fightstar. Now they\u2019re just using his voice over dancey techno, and it doesn’t suit it.\u2019<\/p>\n
So why does Guy think Charlie has decided to make a U-turn and rejoin Busted? \u2018Fightstar\u2019s last album came out last year, and he released a solo album this year but he just can\u2019t get the exposure. Busted will definitely get him more exposure, they even played on Children In Need this year. It\u2019s a shame because I think he had a really good thing going on his own.\u2019<\/p>\n
After listening to Night Driver for no longer than five minutes, Guy says to me \u2018I need to listen to some old Busted now, I can\u2019t listen to this album anymore, it\u2019s ruining the nostalgia for me.\u2019 I had to agree, and I think I\u2019ll always prefer listening to Busted\u2019s classic early noughties songs, but in the noughties they should stay. I respect Busted for trying to evolve and stay relevant, but (and this is tough to say for a Busted fan) it\u2019s the reunion that no one has been asking for. Whether Charlie Simpson has rejoined just for the money or not, it warms my heart to think that Busted are having fun and getting along again. We\u2019ll miss the guitar jumps though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Busted attempt to overcome the reputation left from their patchy past with their new album Night Driver, fans are confused about Charlie Simpsons\u2019s motives to rejoin the band. Did he come back for the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":13079,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,42,92],"tags":[227,384,1092,1268,3769,4322,4477,6756],"class_list":["post-13074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity","category-entertainment","category-music","tag-227","tag-album","tag-busted","tag-charlie-simpson","tag-london","tag-music","tag-night-driver","tag-voiceoflondon"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}