The Monkees

What started as a TV gimmick ended up producing some genuinely infectious pop-rock that still holds up today. The Monkees were assembled in 1965 through open auditions for a scripted TV show about a struggling rock band, landing on four members: Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork. Sure, the manufactured origins drew sneers from the serious rock crowd, but the music itself was hard to argue with. Bubblegum hooks, tight harmonies, and surprisingly sharp songwriting from hired guns like Neil Diamond and Carole King gave the band a commercial edge that rivaled the Beatles at their peak popularity.

Their debut album and the follow-up More of the Monkees both hit number one, and the single Last Train to Clarksville became an immediate classic. As the band pushed for more creative control, Nesmith in particular steered things toward a more country-rock direction, hinting at sounds that would fully emerge in the early seventies. Headquarters, recorded largely by the band themselves, showed they had genuine chops beneath the pop sheen. The Monkees may have been born from a marketing meeting, but their cultural footprint, spanning TV, film with the psychedelic Head, and decades of enduring radio play, proves there was real substance underneath the manufactured surface.