How great are Busted?

As far as i'm aware, there is very little 14th century instrumental music in existence! Renaissance music didn't really get going until the 1400s and in the 14th century it was all medieval gregorian chants and maybe a bit of plainsong as well.

I have to disagree about busted, you can hear in all of "their" music a huge amount of production, tweaking, manipulation and simplistic arrangements and musicianship. That is not something that 3 schoolboys would have put together on their own - and if you watch them on saturday morning childrens TV (for target audiences of about 6-13, where they do MOST of their promotion, which says a great deal IMHO) - you don't even see them really performing - they're just bopping up and down holding a guitar each. Have a listen to all the sounds in their recording - maybe your ears aren't trained well enough for it - but you can hear all sorts of auto-tune artefacts, synth effects and heavily quantised rhythms. It rather defeats the whole object of rock music, as I understand it - and yet they are trying to sell themselves as a rock band. And the name "busted" for fuck's sake - couldn't they have picked something a bit more english? But then i suppose they sing with american accents about american things and the style of music which they are ripping off is also american. And yet these are three boys straight out of Uppingham school.

 

Ah ha! The sax machines problem is not his musical ignorance, instead it is his rabid anti americanism, what is wrong with Busted sounding American? Would a better name have been 'Broken' Is that suitably English?

What this really boils down to is a snobbish view of music that excludes anything that is popular with under 15's on the assumtion that it has no musical quality, I would not deny that Busted's (Brokens!) music is heavily produced, edited and enhanced, however what difference does this make. The Beatles Sg Peppers Lonley Hearts Club Band was so heavily edited that the initial idea was that it could not be played live due to the mass of effects, and remains one of the greatest albums of all time.

And finally a trace of elitism 'boys streight out of Uppingham' again so what? what effect does this actually have on their music Until you can find something wrong with the actual music and not the fact it is massed produced teeny bopping stuff that you disagree with on princiapal all your arguements are for naught.

Howewver i will admit to getting the dates of the rennaisance music wrong, i am terribly sorry and this clearly marks me as a mental inferior

 

No, my point is that they're not american, but they're taking on an american identity purely because their producers have planned it all out for them in accordance with what will sell well, despite the fact that the rock genre has an excellent english pedigree - but English rock has either died or gone the way of either the Darkness, Radiohead or Muse and that doesn't really sell well with the little kiddies.
Actually, in American they don't really mean 'broken' by the term. They mean caught as in nicked, not necessarily by the police, but also possibly by school teachers, military superior or other figures of authority. the word busted doesn't actually exist in the english language. Something "goes bust" it does not "get busted" if you're talking about being broken or ruined.


Mate, I can find a LOT wrong with the music of Busted. What's right with it? There's really nothing to it. It doesn't really embody any real emotions, it doesn't portray any instrumental or vocal technique of note, it doesn't have anything that no band has ever done before - it's positively ordinary! I'lll admit it's like that for a reason. I'm sure you'll agree that Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto is a far superior work, but no 12 year old is going to listen to that because they probably won't even comprehend it. Ok, maybe they can get their heads around Rachmaninov - but give them Shostakovich or Bartok and then they'll really struggle.

Now I'll also admit that the producers behind Busted are good at what they do. The production on the tracks is good - modern pop recordings are all about looking for a superior degree of perfection with the audio quality, the mixing and the editing and all the rest of it. There is skill involved, but it is not on the part of the 3 faces you associated with the name Busted, and it is not musical.

Oh and as for the elitist thing - well I went to an independent school myself, and so I have been on the end of what we now call inverse snobbery, from people who went to state schools. And you have to admit they've got a point. Elitism is all about giving too much credit to those well off. A lot of popular music has come out of the poor ends of society, hip-hop today, and rock as well, before that you had early jazz and blues, before that it was folk music - so when some upper-middle class upstarts try to cash in on the whole thing, don't you think it seems a bit pretentious?

 

Why is no 12 yr old going to listen to it? I did, and (gasp) i comprehended it! and by the age of 13 i could play it!

Why?? If they can do it, they should be allowed to do it, if your working class it doesnt neccisacerely mean that you should be entitled to fame and fortune more than those in the Middle-Class, if you have the abilitly exploit it.

So do you only listen to music that is exceptional, does no 'normal' or 'average' music exist in your collection? Does everything have to be in some way deep an meaningful? How stereotypically teenage! Enjoy music for the sounds it makes, not for the way it is made!

 

you're overcomplicating things. I'm trying to explain to you why it sounds bad. It sounds bad because it doesn't sound good. There, is that easier to understand?

 

I think that this is the core of the debate, Busted sound good because their music is well produced/played/force fed to baboons and when the songs are played you find yourself listening to them, therefore they are good.

However its quite easy to dislike their sound because you find that particular genre to be disagreeable for whatever reason. However disliking music because of its source is less acceptable, would you like busted if they were a non mainstream act that wasnt marketed at children?

 

if they were not marketed in such a way they would sound completely different, believe me - there is very little organic sound in a busted track.

 

That wasnt the question, that was just complicating the issue
Assuming that Busted sounded the same as their current recording but were no mainstream, would you like their music?

 

that's like saying assuming God created the world but didn't exist, would you believe in him?

It makes no sense. Busted's sound is a mainstream manufactured sound- you can hear it in the recordings - you can hear the production on it and you can hear what does and doesn't come from those three lads. I'm doing a course at university which among other things teaches me EXACTLY how to turn a group of musical non-entities into a band that sounds like that.

You seem to be under the impression that production of recordings, management of the band, nature of the publicity and target audience has no bearing whatsoever on the musical side of things, and you could not be more wrong.

 

i say we put busted in a concert list including band like deicide, slayer, metallica, dead kennedys, cannibal corpse, black flag, nofx etc.... without any bouncers for just there show and watch the little fags get mutilated by some psycho punk/metal/death fans

mcfly actually have some musical talent its just a shame they chose that genre of music

 

anyone old enough to remember Rock School (BBC2 ?) , they'd have done great on that

 

If I'm old enough, I missed it.

Busted would belong more on Pop Idol though if you think about it.


Shame they don't have a Pop Idol for actual instrumentalists. Well apart from BBC Young Musician of the Year - which is always dominated by the NYO clique. It'd be good to have contests who could write and produce their own pop tracks, and just get professional engineers in to do the recording and mixing, they could then peform the solo line on whatever instrument or vocals they want. Make it a requirement that the contestant must be the sole composer of the music. It'd be a contest for the complete musician. If of course you're a 10 year old fan of Busted/Will Young/Britney Spears/S Bloody Club 7/6/Juniors/8 or whatever, then you believe that that is in fact what they do.

If course it'd never happen that way, it doesn't need to. The market is working well enough in the eyes of the people that run it. it benefits them and it benefits the peformers. Meanwhile any serious musical connoisseurs STILL have the option of searching for and finding real musicians if they can be arsed. And if you give a shit about music, then you will be arsed, surely!

The only downside is all these idiots who think that music begins and ends with what they see on Top of the Pops.

 

very early 80's it was on
might have even been on at tail end of 70's if I remember right

 

Ah, far too young then, I was probably only just born!

 

I agree totally with both sides of this one! On one hand Busted are a symptom of a rotten and dying music industry - manufactured through auditions, simply a pretty-boy front for records recorded and produced by session musicians and money men aimed solely at mopping up the disposable tweenage dollar.

BUT...

If we're going to have ubiquitous cheap manufactured pop on our Saturday morning TV screens, I'd far rather it was Busted than Westlife. At least the people who produce Busted are writing catchy little pop songs in the vein of Green Day and the like. At least their fans know what guitars look like! They make guitars look cool. A fan of Busted is much more likely to grow up and go on to discover some genuine guitar bands than a fan of Westlife is. And as throwaway pop songs go, I'd rather have Busted's three-chord adrenaline punk-lite ripoffs than a stultifyingly bland lurve-ballad rip-off! You can feel the MOR banality dripping off a Westlife single. At least Busted have some energy.

 

Isn't that like saying let's have George Bush in charge of America because at least he's not Adolf Hitler?

Don't be so pessimistic- you can hope for a lot better than that!

 

If you offered me a choice of either George Bush or Adolf Hitler, I'd go for Bush. Wouldn't you?

There needs to be a place for throwaway pop songs. All I'm saying is that we should firebomb the houses of the people who produce the likes of Westlife BEFORE we firebomb the houses of those behind Busted. Where's the problem with that?

 

YES, but you're NOT offered the choice of George Bush or Adolf Hitler - you're in fact offered the choice of pretty much anyone you bloody well like, so you don't have to choose EITHER.

 

Fair enough, you can decide to totally avoid them altogether if you wish, just don't watch any television or listen to any radio ever (or be very selective)... but as I said there's a place for the trashy throwaway pop song, surely? It's an art form in itself, and the form is dominated by manufactured-type bands. Of these there are terrible slit-wrists bands like Westlife and there are bearable ripoffs like Busted...

 

about trashy manufactured pop scheidt being an artform. Well yes it is, for the engineers and producers. But it's not as if they're the ones credited for it by the masses.