The Monkees (album) scheduled around the work done by Boyce, Hart, and Keller. Famously, the Monkees were not permitted by their management to function as a working band for this album, with the group's contributions limited almost entirely to vocal tracks. Eight of the original LP's twelve tracks feature one lone Monkee singing lead vocal over instrumentation and backing vocals recorded entirely by a group of session musicians which varies from song to song. Other tracks feature multiple Monkees singing over session players; only on the two tracks produced by Michael Nesmith does a Monkee (Peter Tork) get to play an instrument (guitar).
The Monkees and yet impressively weird. Both the style and substance of the Monkees were imitated by American boy band Big Time Rush (BTR), who performed in their own television series which -- by admission of series creator Scott Fellows -- was heavily influenced by the Monkees. Similarly to the Monkees, Big Time Rush featured a "made-for-tv" boy band often caught in a series of misadventures, hijinks, and somewhat slapstick comedy. The show, now in reruns but still hugely popular on Teen Nick, is highly stylized and patterned after the Monkees, even capped with similar cartoonish sound effects. Like the Monkees, BTR