Artists & Bands

The Monkees | Tunes + Guitar Lessons

A made-for-TV band with real musical chops, The Monkees blurred the line between fiction and pop stardom—thanks to top-tier songwriters and timeless hits that still hold up today!

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The Monkees: The World’s First Successfully Manufactured Band

These days, when we think of the ’60s and The Beatles, it’s easy to focus on their groundbreaking albums and iconic singles. But The Fab Four also made films—and those films helped inspire a revolutionary idea in television.

Before Beatlemania hit the big screen, Bob Rafelson had envisioned a TV show about a fictional band. His early pitch was rejected by Universal, but once The Beatles proved that a band could succeed on both stage and screen, Rafelson returned with renewed confidence. This time, he pitched the concept to a Columbia Pictures subsidiary—and The Monkees were born.

The TV sitcom followed four actors miming to songs written specifically for them. Although The Monkees began as a manufactured band, the project succeeded largely due to the strength of the songwriting, expertly overseen by music supervisor Don Kirshner.

Kirshner drew from the best of the Brill Building’s songwriting talent, including:

Carole King (Pleasant Valley Sunday)
Neil Diamond (I’m A Believer)
Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart (Last Train to Clarksville, (Theme from) The Monkees)
John Stewart (Daydream Believer)

Others contributed too, but these writers delivered the biggest hits in The Monkees’ catalogue.

Since then, many acts have followed in their footsteps: Spice Girls, Girls Aloud, One Direction, *NSYNC, New Kids on the Block, Take That, and Backstreet Boys—all shaped by the original formula pioneered by The Monkees.

Would any of these boy or girl bands exist in the same way without The Monkees’ template? Probably not.