Artists & Bands

The Monkees tunes

Video blocked due to privacy settings

[rcb-consent type=”change” tag=”link” text=”Change privacy settings”]

The world’s first successfully manufactured band!

These days, reminiscing about the ’60s and The Beatles, we think about their singles and albums, but The Fab Four made movies as well.

These Beatles movies gave an old idea a man named Bob Rafelson had a few years earlier, that there should be a TV show about a band.

Initially, Bob had presented the concept of The Monkees to Universal, but they’d turned it down. Now, that he could point towards the Beatles’ success, he approached a subsidiary of Columbia and got support.

The sitcom where the four actors would mime to songs written for them as they were The Monkees was a success, mainly down to the quality of the songwriting which was overseen by Don Kirshner.

Don was using songwriters from the Brill building, including:

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

There were other songwriters responsible for penning Monkees tunes, but these were the most successful.

Since the first attempt at manufacturing a band, many have tried since, most notably Girls Aloud, Spice Girls, One Direction, N’ Sync, New Kids On The Block, and Backstreet Boys.

Would any of these boy and girl bands exist without having learned from The Monkees – the world’s first manufactured band? Probably not.