The Prefab Four (the original manufactured band)
So, what exactly makes a group manufactured? Well in a nutshell it’s a group of singers or musicians who are brought together with the sole intention of forming a group, which can then be ruthlessly sold to the masses. Unlike, of course, yer good old-fashioned group who have formed in the usual organic way, and then, yep you got it, ruthlessly groomed for stardom by a manager or record label.
And no doubt the mention of anything manufactured will have most folk immediately thinking back to the ‘90’s, which let’s face it, is when the explosion happened.
Backstreet Boys, N Sync, Take That, Boyzone, The Spice Girls…. to name but a few.
But hold on, I hear some of you cry, what about Bros and NKOTB back in the ‘80’s? (And yes, there were more, but I’m just naming the two biggest players on either side of the pond).
A fair point many would agree, but the Baby Boomers reading this will be immediately out of their chairs and shouting at this blog, ‘Ha gotcha! What about The Partridge Family in the ‘70’s?’
And they’d be right of course, with the dreamy David Cassidy.
But surprisingly the first manufactured ‘Boy Band’ was a whole decade earlier.
Enter stage right, The Monkees.
While it’s true that The Beatles undoubtedly set the template in the ‘60’s for all future boy bands in terms of looks, personalities and marketing, the Fab Four still came together as a group in an organic fashion and most importantly had control over their music and lyrics right from the start.
The Monkees, on the other hand, didn’t. They were put together through a casting call for a new TV series at the time. They consisted of three Yanks and a Brit and formed in Los Angeles in 1966 and clearly emulating The Fab Four.
However, they would effectively determine the blueprint/DNA for what the manufactured band would be going forward. Each kid would be auditioned by some sleazy manager or (equally sleazy) music biz bod and then picked more for their looks and personality than their musical talent. If they had any musical talent, it was considered a happy accident.
The music would also be written for them, and they would be told how to act.
So lo and behold the first (and many would say the greatest) manufactured boy band was born, nearly sixty years ago, who then went on to sell a staggering 75 million songs around the world, making them one of the biggest selling groups of all time.
