Let’s start with a bang. The new McFly single.
McFly have managed to pull off the most difficult of tricks, that of maintaining a large fanbase for more than two or three years dishing out sugar coated pop. Adored by hoards of young girls and boys and grudgingly nodded to by sneerers as they write their own stuff, the four lads have enjoyed charmed lives, headlining the UK’s biggest venues and ruling the charts with single after single.
But now they’re the elder statesmen of pop and they don’t like it. Who would? It’s a horrible title. Their fanbase is also aging, and they need a fresh injection of interest. Which this new single will certainly bring. Especially given their last two records have been inspired by bands like the Who, Queen and The Jam, their new creation, “Party Girl” is one hell of a sidestep.
The band have been off in the States working with Dallas Austin, a man who pretty much invented the term super producer. He's worked with everyone from Jacko to Gwen Stefani and clearly knows his way round a hit single. What he seems to have done for McFly is turned everything up, told them to put their guitars down and see what they can mine from the last two years of pop. From this, you get “Party Girl.”
It’s a good track, especially after you've got over the initial shock that this is the same band that recorded "Five Colours In Her Hair" and "All About You.” The guitars are gone and they’ve been replaced with banging colourful synths and a sleazy bassline. It’s Scissor Sisters meets Green Day, it’s Paramore remixed by David Guetta, it’s…actually a lot like early Savage Garden, when the Antipoedean duo were first around, with “Break Me, Shake Me” and “Tears Of Pearl” Aggressive vocals smashed over fist pumping electronica.
Austin has clearly been working in pop production for too long to ignore the current trends, and there's plenty of Red One, Space Cowboy and Guetta all over this one. The distorted vocals, the euphoria laced synths and the driving rhythm actually make it a track that would sound more comfortable coming out of festival speakers than a teenage girl's bedroom. It is, as always with anything Tom Fletcher and Danny Jones pen, insanely catchy.
What this new direction will gain McFly will be interesting to see. You can’t imagine Delphic or Klaxons fans going out to grab their new album, nor can you imagine that they’re suddenly going to be booked at Creamfields, but for Radio One listeners who liked the sound of La Roux, Ellie Goulding and Hadouken and wished they had something you could play in city centre nightclubs, this might be it.
Others will do poppy electronica better, but it’s gratifying to see a band like McFly trying new things.
Make up your own mind here:
I miss the band that did 'Five Colours in Her Hair', even Radio:Active had its good points. Why did they need to try and find a new musical direction - stick to what you know and what teenage/slightly-older-than-teenage girls like!
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