We knew it all along. Busted were just the warm-up for the decade’s finest pop-punk, not-quite-a-boyband: McFly.

5 Colours in Her Hair, by McFly (their 1^st of seven #1s)

2 weeks, 4^th – 18^th April 2004

I love McFly. I think they produced some of 21^st century Britain’s finest pop songs. I have seen them live three times. I’ll admit right now, off the bat, that I will struggle to give an unbiased critique of any of their seven chart-toppers. But, having said that, ‘5 Colours in Her Hair’ is pretty far down my list of best McFly singles, let alone my list of best McFly tracks (unlike most pop groups, McFly’s albums weren’t full of filler).

At the same time, this song was probably the best way to launch the band: a breakneck, surf-rock track with a stupidly catchy doo-doo-doodoo-doo hook, and lyrics about a loner with a sexy attitude (inspired by the dreadlocked Susan Lee from Channel 4 drama ‘As If’). This was the McFly manifesto for most of their first three albums, a period that would produce those seven #1s, as well as an unbroken run of fifteen Top 10 hits.

It’s also got that cheeky chappy energy we saw with Busted’s ‘Crashed the Wedding’ and, to a lesser extent, Sam and Mark. The video is a zany Monkees/Beach Boys/Beatles pastiche, and the I’d like to phone her ‘cause she puts me in the mood… is nicely naughty. The main thing that has never sat well with me is the Everybody wants to know her na-ee-a-ee-a-ee-ame hook, which I always thought was annoying and forced.

Having called them pop-punk in the intro, I’m going to retract that claim. Busted were more Blink-182, pop-punk adjacent. McFly had a far wider ranging sound, paying unapologetic homage to British pop and rock from the ‘60s and ‘70s, while Tom Fletcher and Danny Jones were the more talented songwriters (though Busted’s James Bourne, to give him his due, did co-write this record). The B-side to ‘5 Colours in Her Hair’ was a cover of the Kinks’ ‘Lola’, with Busted, while the first time I saw McFly live they announced that they were going to play a new song they had ‘been working on backstage’, before launching into ‘She Loves You’.

I might go as far as to name ‘5 Colours in Her Hair’ my 6^th favourite of McFly’s seven number ones. Though it would rise up the rankings if we include the heavier version that they re-recorded for the US release of their debut album. That’s the version I would choose to revisit these days. It should be noted too, that this song managed two weeks at number one, an impressive feat given how later McFly singles tended to collapse in their second week of release.