BUSTED delivered a tearful farewell to the music scene yesterday, barely two years after the group was formed.

Led by Charlie Simpson, an Uppingham School boarder, Busted made spiky-haired teenagers jumping up and down with guitars de rigueur on Top of the Pops.

The trio enjoyed four No 1 singles and sold 2.5 million records, more than recouping the investment made in the band by Universal Music.

But with the arrival of McFly, the record company’s even younger, spikier-haired quartet, Busted recognised that they had become obsolete.

Simpson, 19, said that he was quitting in order to begin a serious musical career with his new rock band Fightstar. Fans who waited outside the Soho Hotel press conference sobbed — and turned on their former idols.

Kate Mills, 18, who travelled from Wolverhampton, said: “I’m very angry with Charlie. If he’s into indie music why did he join a pop band in the first place?” She added: “I won’t be following Charlie’s new band. It would have been better if he’d announced what he was doing at the end of the last tour and got on with it.”

Simpson and bandmates Matt Jay, 21, and James Bourne, 20, added a novel spin to the boy-band phenomenon by contributing musically and lyrically to their own records.

“I’ve been to the year 3000,” they sang on an early hit. “Not much has changed but they lived under water. Triple breasted women swim around town . . . totally naked!” But last year, Busted said that they were bored with female fans offering naked breasts for signatures, a sure sign of pop-star ennui.

MTV screened a reality series following the band’s attempt to “crack the States” but American record-buyers were unmoved.

Busted’s most notorious moment came when they endorsed the Conservatives in an interview in Tatler magazine last year. Simpson preferred “the Tories’ way of doing things” while Jay said that he had become a “Tory boy” to protect his earnings.

Michael Howard, the Tory leader, leapt upon the endorsement although he had never heard Busted’s music.

The trio have earned around £350,000 each from their brief spin around the charts, more than most pop acts because they earn publishing royalties from their songs .

Universal have spent about £500,000 marketing the band since its launch in 2002.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Please help: maimed children of war want their lives back
• Unlocking the cruellest prison
• Prince Charles named in £81m court battle