L-R: Tom, Dougie, Danny, Harry
McFly are a British Pop-Rock band who were formed in 2003. While being rather obscure in most overseas countries (In America, non-fans will probably only know them from the movie Just My Luck, if they've even heard of them at all), they're a mainstream success in the UK, with 15 top-ten singles, 7 number ones and a World Record for youngest band ever to have their debut album chart at number 1 (The record was previously held by The Beatles).
In 2006 they had supporting roles in Just My Luck, alongside Lindsay Lohan. (It was there that Harry and Lindsay would have a supposed fling, which inspired their song 'Please Please')
McFly have released 6 Studio Albums (7 if you count "Just My Luck" in the US), 3 Greatest Hits Albums (Two regular, one exclusively B-sides sold only in certain Woolworths stores), 3 live DVDs and one movie (Not counting Just My Luck). They recently released The Lost Songs comprised of songs they recorded in 2011-2013, confirmed by Dougie in a podcast in January 2019. They also teamed up with their friends James Bourne and Matt Willis of Busted to form McBusted, then released an album in 2014.
Yes, they are indeed named after the family from Back to the Future.
The members of McFly are:
- Tom Fletcher (Guitar, piano, vocals)
- Danny Jones (Guitar, vocals)
- Dougie Poynter (Bass, vocals)
- Harry Judd (Drums)
Discography
- Room on the 3rd Floor (2004)
- Wonderland (2005)
- Just My Luck (2006) (USA Only)
- Motion in the Ocean (2006)
- All The Greatest Hits (2007)
- The Greatest Bits: B-Sides and Rarities (2007) (Woolworths stores only)
- Radio:ACTIVE (2008)
- Above the Noise (2010)
- Memory Lane: The Best of McFly (2012)
- The Lost Songs (2019)
- Young Dumb Thrills (2020)
- Power to Play (2023)
- Other albums:
- McBusted (2014) (w/ James Bourne and Matt Willis of Busted)
Tropes:
- Abbey Road Crossing: The guys cross it a couple of times in the video for "5 Colours In Her Hair".
- Album Title Drop: They seem to like this trope:
- "Wonderland" comes from the first verse of Ultraviolet; "Nothing goes to plan, it's all a game of chance they say in Wonderland."
- "Please, Please" from their third album "Motion in the Ocean" uses "Let's get the motion in the ocean so turn off your phone now."
- "Above The Noise" appeared in the first lines of the second verse in "Shine a Light"; "Tell me can you hear my voice, loud and clear above the noise?"
- Break-Up Song:
- "Don't Know Why" - a song Danny and his sister wrote about their parent's split.
- B-Side: Quite often. Usually they are either Cover Versions or previews of songs from an upcoming new album.
- Call-Back: Their second Greatest Hits album, 'Memory Lane', is named after an album track from Wonderland.
- 'I'll Be Your Man' appears to be sung to a girl named Kate, likely a reference to a previous track on the same album, If U C Kate, especially since the latter is about looking for Kate while the former mentions her being found.
- The Cameo: Harry played the drummer in the background for the video for Busted's 'Crashed the Wedding.'
- They also had a cameo in the Doctor Who episode The Sound Of Drums doing promo for Harold Saxon's campaign for Prime Minister.
- Continuity Nod: Their song, Love Is Easy
, is filled with references and allusions◊ to their earlier albums. - The Cover Changes the Meaning: Their cover of 'I Kissed a Girl' is changed to be about a gay man questioning his sexuality.
- A Day in the Limelight: Dougie, who is normally reduced to just singing backup, gets to be the lead vocalist in 'Transylvania', and B-sides Ignorance and Silence is a Scary Sound. Also, the storyline part of the video for "That's The Truth" is about him.
- Did Not Get the Girl: A frequent theme. Songs include "Obviously", "Unsaid Things", "That Girl" (where he got the girl and then lost her).
- Don't Try This at Home: This disclaimer pops up during the video for "Star Girl", during a scene in which Dougie jumps off the roof of a house. Some channels had this scene removed altogether.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: The premise for "The Last Song":"If this is the last song I'll ever sing,I'm giving it everything, I'm giving it all"
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: The seconds chorus of "5 Colours in Her Hair" changes one of the lines to ask, "How will she cope with her newfound fame?" The bridge shortly after the chorus reveals the answer: not very well.
- Genre Throwback: Their first album is very Surf Rock heavy, clearly inspired by the likes of The Beach Boys.
- Greatest Hits Album: Two, plus a "Greatest Bits Album".
- Groin Attack: Tom gets one at the end of the video for "Sorry's Not Good Enough." Considering what he does during the video, though, (duct-taping his girlfriend to her chair and forcing her to relive memories of them in order to stop their break up) it's clear that he deserves it.
- History Repeats: Mild but Dougie spent 2011 going through the same thing Matt Willis of Busted went through in 2006. Namely rehab and then going on to win that years I'm A Celebrity.
- Interspecies Romance: 'Star Girl' is about falling for an alien woman.
- Lyrical Dissonance:
- 'The Ballad Of Paul K' sounds quite cheerful and calming for a song about a man going through a mid-life crisis.
- "Don't Know Why" has very cheery, great to dance to music and the lyrics are about a guy sitting in the pub with his dad who's splitting up with his wife because he's found someone else."I don't want to know your game, let alone her name. No matter what you say to me, we are not the same."
- Media Watchdog: The video for "Do Ya" was not allowed to be aired on some channels due to its violent content. Ironic, considering 'Do Ya' was the Children in Need charity single for that year,
- "Party Girl" had to have some scenes removed in order to be allowed on television.
- 'I Wanna Hold You' was reworked slightly to change some of the lyrics to make it commercially viable as a single after a reviewer noted it was a bit too violent to be a serious pop hit (note that the only real lyrical change is changing "destroy the world" to "change the world" and "It's like a neutron bomb explosion" to "You keep polluting like the ocean").
- The Movie: Parodied during one of their interviews; Coming soon: The McFly: The Interview: The Movie.
- Played straight with Nowhere Left to Run, a short film created to promote 'Above The Noise'.
- Played straight with Nowhere Left to Run
- Pop Punk: Their fourth album, radio:ACTIVE, dives head first into the genre, not that they didn't record songs in the genre before then, or after. In fact, they rerecorded their hit, '5 Colours in Her Hair' in this style for Just My Luck's soundtrack, which became how they performed the song live afterwards.
- Precision F-Strike:
- "Everybody Knows" leaves a space to be filled in by the word "fuck," which Dougie often fills in himself during live performances.
- 'IF U C Kate's' title literally has each middle letter spell out "fuck."
- 'Growing Up' has, "The best that you can do is not give a fuck."
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "WE! DON'T! WE! DON'T! CARE!".
- Real Life Writes the Plot: 'Please, Please' was written after some tabloids thought that Harry and Lindsay Lohan had a relationship. It even includes references to her (the girl being wooed in the song is named Lindsay, she has green eyes, and has red hair, just like Lohan).
- Remake Cameo: Dougie played the guy the girl was in love with instead of one of the band members in The Vamps' music video for their cover of 'That Girl.'
- Rockumentary: Short ones were usually included as special features on their live DVDs. A four-episode documentary of their Up Close and Personal tour was aired on MTV in the UK.
- Also there was a six part fly on the wall documentary aired on 5* in the UK in 2011, Brilliantly named McFly On The Wall.
- Revisiting the Roots: The Lost Songs has several songs that wouldn't be too out of place on their first 2 albums, which isn't too surprising considering they're cowritten by James Bourne, who cowrote most of the songs on their first album.
- Self-Referential Track Placement: The Title Track of Room on the 3rd Floor is track #3.
- Shout-Out:
- Their name is a one to Back to the Future.
- The opening of the "One For the Radio" music video recreates the opening scene of Back to the Future, with Danny turning up the power and volume of a giant amp, then it overloading in power when he strums on his guitar, sending him flying backwards.
- The video for 5 Colours in Her Hair contains Shout Outs to The Beatles and The Beach Boys.
- The song itself was inspired by the British Dramedy As If, specifically the character Suzanne 'Sooz' Lee.
- In the video for All About You, the security guard (Played by Harry Hill) wears a badge saying "I'm a Busted fan". Coincidentally, the video was filmed on the same day Busted announced their split.
- Splash of Color: In the music video for "Five Colours in Her Hair", everything in the titular girl's house is greyscale except the girl herself.
- Studio Chatter: The end of "5 Colours in her Hair".
- The Something Song: "The Last Song", "This Song"
- Supergroup: Matt and James from Busted joined them to become McBusted from 2013-2015.
- Uranus Is Showing: "Star Girl" includes a reference to Uranus, everyone's favourite planet."There's nothing on Earth that could save us, when I fell in love with Uranus"
- Vocal Tag Team: Tom and Danny, though Dougie gets in on it in some songs, and they have individual songs where they're the only ones singing lead as well.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: The "Transylvania" video features the entire band (Though it specifically focused on Dougie) wearing fancy Period Dresses, nightgowns and wigs◊.
- Wolverine Publicity: In the UK, most of the publicity for Just My Luck was based on the fact that McFly were starring in it. They weren't even major characters.
