The Singles Jukebox

Course, knocking up slashfic for this lot is a bit pointless. You have seen their videos, right?…

[Video][Website]
[5.00]

Alfred Soto: Oh no here it comes
[2]

Mark Sinker: So I decided this is part of this year’s New Pop Mess everyone’s on about. Based on liking it a lot, and plus the idea of this Mess. But not on, you know, knowing what I’m talking about, let alone what THEY’RE all talking about. Also: vampires.
[8]

Michaelangelo Matos: Always wondered what these guys’ deal was. Now I know: everything their press photos indicated, meaning generic, glossy, and useless.
[3]

Anthony Easton: The only thing I know about McFly is sometimes they show up naked on the cover of fag rags. I will keep the magazines and ignore the music.
[3]

Iain Mew: McFly come back bulked up all round, with an aggressive number which is pretty much to “Bad Romance” as “5 Colours in Her Hair” was to “Basket Case”. Only thing that’s stopping me from getting carried away by its pulsing drive is one word sitting there in the chorus — “she’s such a little party girl”? Everything else is building up the girl as this monumental figure (alternately for bad and for good) and the careering advance of the song gets thrown way off course by the needless diminuitive.
[6]

Hazel Robinson: Initially, this sounds like “Bad Romance”, which is a good way to get everyone to confusedly hit the dancefloor. Then it turns out not to be but fortunately instead sounds like McFly having a Lady Gaga party; I know this might potentially be a bit niche interest, but that is a fucking party I’d want to be at, right there. Plus, every time I listen to it I end up spending the next three hours with the hook stuck in my head, even if Danny’s singing is anomalously terrible in the mix.
[9]

Jessica Popper: “Party Girl” is the first good song they’ve made since their debut album, and I love that they have ‘gone poptastic’, but at the same time it’s a bit sad. After spending so many years trying (and failing) to be credible, to release their cheesiest single yet simply reeks of desperation. It’s a fun song and I’d like it to be a hit, if only to encourage other dull guitar acts, but I’d so much rather a brand new band was behind this.
[8]

Doug Robertson: McFly had already exceeded their sell-by date pretty much before they’d even released their second single, but at least they seemed happy with their vaguely irritating, unimaginatively retro sound. Here they attempt to drag their music into the 21st century — coming up about 4 years too short, admittedly, but bless them for trying — and end up sounding like the sort of act that turns up when soap operas feel the need to do a “teenage character forms a band” storyline.
[2]

Mallory O’Donnell: Terrifically reminiscent, not of a classic night out or a wild one in, but of the truly loathsome hangover that typically follows either. Your mouth tastes like bourbon and sweet tarts, there is a horrible rave breakdown encrusted in your mind and a residual mass of sine wave vibrations hovering a quarter-inch above the surface of your skin until at least the third cup of coffee. And for some reason that horrible, haunting mass of sound still echoing in your ears just gets louder… and softer… louder… and softer…
[4]

Martin Skidmore: Their singing remains barely adequate, and I don’t think there’s much of a tune here, but it does thump along kind of impressively.
[5]