Album Review

McFly – Memory Lane

• 27th Nov 2012

When McFly first arrived on the pop scene in March 2004 with their debut single ‘Five Colours In Her Hair’ they didn’t really seem the kind of band that would be around for very long. Though the song hit the top spot in the charts and the pennings they created in their early years were catchy nuggets of rough-around-the-edge pop hits with strong teen appeal, they never really stuck out as long-stayers in a time when pop bands like McFly seemed two-a-penny. At the time they were also in direct competition with Busted, a very similar act, despite the fact that Busted launched McFly into mainstream existence after inviting them on tour with the three-piece.

Years on there is no sign of Busted but McFly, on the other hand, well….they still appear to be going strong after 8 years and sales in excess of 8 million.

With each record McFly seemed to turn out the hits, one after another, most reaching either the number one spot in the UK or within the Top 5. They certainly went on to carve quite the repertoire for themselves and prove critics who doubted the longevity of the act quite wrong.

As with every Christmas period, the season is the prime time for bands to release new material or greatest hits packages. With fellow pop heavyweights like Girls Aloud, Kylie Minogue and Kelly Clarkson all capitalizing on the closing months of the year with ‘hit’ collections and in time for Christmas stockings to be filled, McFly have decided that the Christmas period is the right time for another hits package of their own.

‘Memory Lane’, with its oil painted cover featuring the lads in striking poses, is the bands third ‘Best Of’ release and covers the quartet’s journey so far with nods to all of the hits that the band have unleashed over a successful 8 years in the public eye.

Each of the bands hits find a place on the tracklisting of the new collection we are offered here and they sit alongside 3 new tracks including the collections lead single, ‘Love Is Easy’. The band are also releasing a deluxe version of the collection with the additional disc containing a collection of some of the bands notable covers, demos, live performances and unreleased recordings.

The collection includes the Top 5 hits, ‘That Girl’, ‘Room On The 3rd Floor’, ‘I Wanna Hold You’, ‘Sorry’s Not Good Enough’, ‘The Heart Never Lies’, ‘One For The Radio’ and ‘Lies’ as well as the McFly’s pairing with Taio Cruz on one of the foursomes more recent hits, ‘Shine A Light’, also a Top 5 hit in the UK.

Number one hits also find home on the record. Among them is ‘Transylvania’, ‘I’ll Be Ok’, ‘Obviously’, ‘Stargirl’ and the acts signature pennings, ‘All About You’ and ‘Five Colors In Her Hair’, providing the latter half of the disc with a true trip down memory lane, just like the can says.

The bands chart topping cover of the classic Queen hit, ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, a single which the band released as the official single for Sport Relief back in 2006, is also featured on the album.

Among the new songs is the spangly ‘Do Whatcha’ which sets the record alight with spacey effects with an incredibly catchy chorus as well as Harry Judds impressive drum work while a whirling synth backbone creates a memorable retro effect on the track. The following ‘Cherry Cola’ offers us something a little different to what we would usually expect from these boys. The instrumentation to the number is provided by a toe tapping hand clapped melody while a subtle string section and harmonica also find their place in the track as the foursome provide the numbers fresh, harmony heavy chorus while Danny Jones let’s loose on the track with his confident lead vocals. This ones as sugary as its title.

With a band like McFly it is too easy to forget the talent that resides among the foursome. The tracks have all been written by the band, principally by Tom Fletcher. Though they have, over the years, welcomed co-writers into the foray of McFly pop creations, the band have done everything themselves and that is something quite rare in pop music and is also something really worth appreciating and acknowledging about this act.

Venue: Memory Lane
Support Band: Island Records