The title is as it is because, readers, I'm sorry. I just thought I'd say it before I get started. And also because it's the title of a song from a certain band...

I've been so good for so long. I haven't mentioned them in weeks. In fact, I've barely thought of them in weeks. The only reminder really is the little row of vinyl above my desk and the calendar to my left. Yes, boys and girls, I'm talking about McFly.

For those of you who remember The Column (I capitalise it now to give it much more importance that it probably deserves), you might think of my obsession with a certain boyband. They have, however, been off the raidar for quite a while now, so all McFly-related thoughts have been banished, in the name of listening to music that could almost pass as credible (shut it, you. Yes, I do mean you. You know who you are) and spending time studying/seeing my friends rather than practicing my signature for when I marry Harry.

I never did that. Well, I haven't done it in years anyway, so it hardly counts...

Way back when I was a teenage columnist (wow, autobiography title right there!), it was the days of the Room on the 3rd Floor album. Five Colours in her Hair, Obviously, That Girl and the title track. Feel good pop, bordering on plagarising the Beach Boys now and then, with more than a generous helping of influence from James-Bourne-from-Busted. In other words, they sounded like Baby Busted.

Just as the column ended, I met the boys after an afternoon hanging about outside a radio station, and since then I've seen them live with my very own eyes four times. Not a great deal, yes, I'll give you that. But I live in Scotland and they seem to not like coming up here.

Next came Wonderland, their attempt at 'serious' music - in other words, they hired an orchestra and Harry started dating one of the violinists. Then there was Motion in the Ocean, which reverted back to the McFly of old.

Possibly with a little bit of help from the record company bosses, disappointed not to have album number two hit the top spot in the charts.

However, they did disappear for a while. There was the Greatest Hits tour, followed by the album, the DVD, and then... Nothing.

Whatever happened to McFly?

Turns out (as we crazy, obsessed McFly fans have actually known for months but was only really confirmed in the press this week), McFly 'ditched' their record company, Universal Island and are setting up on their own.

No longer will they be doing what the money men say! They'll be able to push, er, creative boundaries and do it on their own! It's like the Nouvelle Vague in French cinema, but with baggy jeans and questionable haircuts.

And so 'Super Records' has been born. For the first time in their career, McFly are going to be playing as themselves. Not as the pop puppets that Island made them to be. Not that there was anything wrong with those pop puppets, in my eyes. But when you hear them play live, you do notice the difference - it's marginal, but it was probably all that they could get away with under the watchful eyes of the bosses.

I haven't waffled enough yet, no. My next thought - what direction will New Wave McFly go in?

Having watched pretty much every McFly interview that existed on YouTube up until about a year and a half ago, it can be confirmed that the four of them are absolutely nuts. Which is why I'm scared for them.

They're going to end up releasing an album influenced entirely by Star Wars. Or enlisting the help of the people behind Star Wars. We all saw what happened when they tried to get 'serious' with the Wonderland album, the Ballad of Paul K and She Falls Asleep. It was the exact reason why Island made McFly re-release Room on the 3rd Floor and call it Motion in the Ocean, for God's sake.

I've heard a leak from the new material (well, that's what it said it was on YouTube, and I trust the internet, me), an unpolished slice of what's to come from McFly HQ. I really can say that now and imagine their record label offices with Tom in a suit and glasses, feet up on the desk, smoking a cigar while the other three rund around doing some filing...

But anyway. It's all right. It's nothing really that groundbreaking. It still sounds like McFly, but they've had a shot at swearing. It's a bit odd. I could almost see them sitting round a table, engaging in the songwriting process and thinking of new ways to be grown-up McFly, ballsy McFly, the sort of McFly that mums won't be pleased with and they got as far as 'shit'. Scary.

It'll be interesting though. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes, really. Well, I won't find out until the end of the summer, I suppose, seeing as all the new stuff will be happening while I'm off in America.

The first stunt from 'new look McFly' will be on our TV screens on Tuesday, as McFly guest-chef on Gordon Ramsay's The F Word. Yes, more opportunities for effing and jeffing as poor Chef Gordan, as the Americans call him, tries to get them to cook.

Goodbye Saturday morning kids shows, hello post watershed cookery show!

Well, every image overhaul has to start somewhere... Right?

Posted: Thursday 22 May 2008 20:02:36