Busted



"Stood there was my neighbour called Peter and a Flux Capacitor"

- "Year 3000"

Needs a Better Description

British Pop Punk boyband that formed in 2001 and split up in 2005. Despite being mainly supplanted by McFly in the public consciousness, they were influential at the time in bringing back guitar-driven pop bands and had a great many copy-cat acts at the time. They were also the number one selling band in the UK for two years, outselling Coldplay.

They were best known for their songs "What I Go To School For", "Year 3000" (both were later covered by The Jonas Brothers), for providing the theme song for the live-action Thunderbirds movie and in America, for their reality show America or Busted. They released 3 albums, two studio albums and one live album.

The group consisted of James Bourne, Charlie Simpson, and Matt Willis. There have been recent rumours that Busted plan on reforming, minus Charlie. These rumours were confirmed by Matt, who has been writing new material alongside James.


 * Busted (2002)
 * A Present for Everyone (2003)
 * A Ticket For Everyone: Busted Live (2004)


 * Big Ol' Eyebrows: Charlie, Charlie Charlie.
 * Break Up Song: "Over Now"
 * Bottle Fairy: Matt was nicknamed in British tabloids as "Beer Matt" for his many drunken incidents.
 * Crossdresser: Matt appears as the bride in Crashed The Wedding, seemingly channeling Sam Fox.
 * Fading Into the Next Song: "Meet You There" slowly fades into "Why" on the album "A Present for Everyone".
 * Hot for Student: The ending of What I Go To School For, and its bookend-song Loser Kid.
 * Hot for Teacher: The entire POINT of What I Go To School For.
 * Multicolored Hair: One of Matt's defining characteristics was to never have the same hair colour for any singles campaign.
 * Old Shame: To Charlie, now that his rock band Fightstar have attained success.
 * Performance Video: Last two singles 3am and She Wants To Be Me were both montage videos from their live DVD.
 * Reality Show: "America or Busted"
 * Post Busted, Matt appeared on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, and won following eating a kangaroo's anus. Considered by Matt to be his personal Old Shame
 * Screw Yourself: Matt makes out with himself during the video for Crashed The Wedding, much to James and Charlie's suggested chagrin. It Makes Sense in Context
 * Shout-Out: Year 3000 contained references to Back to The Future, as shown in the page quote.
 * Year 3000 also featured references to Michael Jackson, Fake contained shoutouts to When Harry Met Sally, and Britney contained shoutouts to both the titular Ms Spears and *N Sync. James Bourne liked this trope.
 * Slash Fic: They were a boyband, of course there was slashfic. (When questioned on it, Matt and James decided to Ship Tease by declaring mutual love on their arms.)
 * Spiritual Successor: McFly are considered to be Busted's successors (And were even nicknamed in the British Press as "Baby Busted" when they first hit the big time).
 * Also, Son Of Dork, a short-lived band founded by Bourne, whose music was very similar to Busted.
 * Stalker with a Crush: "She Wants to be Me" was about this.
 * Video Full of Film Clips: "Thunderbirds are Go"