How were the Monkeys a fake band?
In their case, it ended up working pretty well. There was some dispute as to whether or not they wrote any of their songs or even played their own instruments. But its undeniable that they could sing well together.
Refine your definition; it relies too heavily on who you do or don’t consider a legitimate “matchmaker.” VERY few bands ever spontaneously came about because four friends wanted to form a band and that was it. Almost always, such bands are torn apart and “original members” are matched up with replacements found through auditions and producers.
The thing about the Monkees is simply they existed as a fictional band first.
It almost never happens organically like that. On some level almost every band is constructed. Whether it’s the fully synthetic “casting call” bands like the entire J-Pop K-Pop and Boy Band industries, or assembled in the studio that’s all “solo” artists in rock and roll, or responding to adds in the paper which is the rest of rock and roll. Pretty much the only fully “organic” bands that ever are supergroups, when people fully established in other bands or as solos say “hey, we should do something”. And oddly enough most supergroups suck. I mean there’s the occasional awesome one like Cream or Traveling Wilburys, but for every one of those there’s half a dozen The Firms and Power Stations.
So just like in the grocery store, organic is overrated.
Like Boston?