McBusted — McBusted

Island | discogs.com

Peppy pop-punk parody

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In my Superlative Albums I Wrote About in 2017 list, this album was awarded the Very Cute Boy for Boybandiest Boyband

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Once upon a time, I would travel half the length of the city in the morning, every morning, for my daily commute. My impotent rage at our comically inadequate public transport system having long since sublimated, I would turn to the distraction of my extensive and, if I do say so myself, really damn good personal music library. The world is a better place when you can block out bus nutjobs with a simple pair of headphones, as thrown into sharp relief by those few occasions when they were forgotten.

I have heard far more than anyone could ever possibly want to hear about the architecture of Parliament House. I have borne earwitness to the end of a marriage, absorbing by osmosis salient and obscene details screamed into a telephone two rows behind me.

Then one fateful morning, shuffled into my playlist of choice, I happened upon an acquisition I had long since forgotten about. And to my horror, I found that I was grinning like a loon, chuckling to myself like someone around whom a wide perimeter of avoidance would spontaneously assert itself.

I became a bus nutjob that day.

But intermingled with my horror was pure, childlike delight.

For I had discovered McBusted.

Nestled comfortably between satire and homage, McBusted is an affectionate caricature of your preferred pop-rock band into which you channelled all your teenage angst. Their lyrics are graffitied through your notebooks. Their pictures are collaged on your bedroom walls. Their influence is engraved in your heart.

McBusted have weaponised the nostalgia hijack, harking back to fond high-school memories of a carefree, tax-free time. A time before we were consumed by anxiety over the impending nuclear holocaust, when the biggest problem we could face was waiting for swoopy-haired cuties to text back.

Pursuant to my well-documented enjoyment of fun music, this is right up my alley.

Like a gaggle of millennial Hugh Grants, McBusted cast themselves as lovable nerdy protagonists dashing through the pouring rain to make anguished declarations of love, swearing fealty forever and a day. They pen songs smooth as veal cutlets, all chunky chugging guitars, sparkling production, with enough hooks to Velcro your headphones to your ears for days.

The album’s efficient runtime is spent swerving up and down the pop-rock continuum, from sugary boy band repertoire to spicier punk stylings. The soaring chorus of ‘Get Over It’ shamelessly and magnificently rips off One Direction, while the three distinct flavours of whinging that drench ‘I See Red,’ ‘23:59’ and ‘Back In Time’ respectively recall old-school Yellowcard, mid-decade Paramore and vintage Green Day. (Hey, remember ‘Ocean Avenue’? What a banger.) McBusted even throw their ironically douchey hipster hats squarely into that spacious intersection of sexism, misogyny and ignorance with ‘Beautiful Girls Are the Loneliest,’ a parody of Ed Sheeran’s gentle acoustic r/niceguy balladry.

Two songs in, a spurt of frenzied double-time drumming leaves a distinctly Blink-182-shaped impression, an impression not lessened by guest vocals from Mark Hoppus himself:

“Because I hate your guts /
Shit, I hate you so much /
I hope you suffer a small paper cut /
I hope your boss makes you stay for a half-hour more /
Because I hate your guts /
And I wish I didn’t love you anymore”

Later on, ‘Riding On My Bike’ begins with the octave startup chime of a Gameboy Colour, interpolating very specifically pixelated synthesisers.

The album’s halfway point is marked by a song with exactly one idea:

“I’m just a sensitive guy, I’ll cry on your shoulder /
We’ll watch a movie and I’ll cry when it’s over /
I’ll cry and cry and cry and cry /
And cry and cry and cry and cry and cry /
And cry /
I’m just a sensitive guy”

Your inner music geek will appreciate a particularly fine pre-chorus from the finishing stretch. A quaver rhythm rises through the dominant seventh chord, leading into the album’s most cheekily generic roar of a chorus:

“I'm g-g-getting it out now / (You're the one that I want) /
I'm getting it out now / (Holding back for so long) /
Ch-ch-ch-check it out now / (Not a moment to waste) /
I'm getting it out now / (I could fall on my face)”

I would make an attempt at deconstruction, but there’s literally nothing to it — just happy feel-good fun times. Of course, the upside of having no depth is that what you see is what you get. And just splashing around in the shallows isn’t such a bad way to spend an afternoon.

If this charming tribute to punkers colours you unimpressed, if this gleeful parody of poppers cannot draw from you the merest snicker, then you may be functionally dead.

McBusted, like Galaxy Quest, demonstrate a deep and abiding respect for their source material. McBusted, like The Simpsons of yesteryear, know that you can poke fun and tickle armpits while at the same time embracing the warm fuzzy core.

After all, in the immortal words of McBusted:

“Sha la la /
Woah oh oh”