Mowtown was just as manufactured as the Monkees. Singers typically didn’t write their songs or play the instruments.
The Sex Pistols were a manufactured band as well, a selling point being they couldn’t play their instruments.
The Runaways were a manufactured band as well.
Even Elvis’ post-Sun career was manufactured.
Manufacturing is the key to Industry.
True, but the Funk Bros instrumentals are awesome. And as they said in the movie, "the way we played the music, Bugs Bunny coulda sang those songs"
“The Sex Pistols were a manufactured band as well, a selling point being they couldn’t play their instruments.”
Considering he hadn’t been playing for very long when they recorded Never Mind the Bollocks, Steve Jones was not a bad guitarist. Glen Matlock was a decent musician, but he got the boot in part because he liked stuff like the Beatles.
Sid Vicious was so bad that the band frequently turned off his amp during shows, and according to Jones there are maybe three or four notes of Sid’s bass playing on Never Mind the Bollocks. Jones played bass on most of the album; Matlock played it on “Anarchy In The UK.” If you don’t have enough musical ability to play bass in a punk band, you’ve gotta be pretty hopeless...