Disagree disagree disagree.
Uh …now you have posted to this thread!
If you had any experience playing in a band professionally in the studio or on tour you would know that there are member(s) who contribute all the time, some who contribute occasionally, and some who don’t contribute at all. As a band matures, this tenancy grows and there will be members who take control and others who end up “loafing”.
Now, I would not put Ringo, Adam Clayton, or Larry Mullen in that category either since they are either irreplaceable or have contributed to their bands successes, have talent, and have had some success in solo careers.
Unfortunately, after having huge influence on their music up to and including DSOTM, Nick Mason or Richard Wright seemed to relinquish alot of their musical control. I mean, essentially “Momentary Lapse of Reason” was a David Gilmour solo album with Mason and Wright as hired musicians. Same thing with “Liberty Bell”. Arguably, they may be replaceable but they have talent.
Now, Michael Anthony, on the other hand is the epitome of someone who has had an amazing amount of success with very limited talent and contributed very little musically as per the OP’s question. I love the guy but he is one of the MTV people Dire Straits wrote “Money for Nothing” about. We can debate how his background vocals defined the band’s sound or Eddy’s control issues took over the bass duties but ultimately he was replaced by a 15 year old which is definitely not deserving but a fact nontheless.
I didn’t think Geri and Emma were that horrible. Bland, yes. Unlistenable, no.
Victoria, OTOH, has never been able to sing in tune without serious technical assistance. Watch the video for their breakout hit Wannabe sometime. Note who never gets a solo. Coincidence? I think not. Definitely a contender for Waste of Musical Space.
In the category of “money hog who hasn’t done anything in music worth mentioning for ages and tries constantly to keep in the public eye with self-indulgent TV shows and product endorsements”, we have Ozzy Osbourne.
There are also “bands who should have hung it up decades ago but are still touring”. Case in point - Fleetwood Mac was just in town.
All right, listen up **Sparky **(sorry; I always wanted to have a legit reason to say that - I don’t really mean to be snippy ;))…
Who are we to say whether Gilmour could’ve finished his “solo” CD without having backing musicians he wasn’t completely comfortable with like those two? And Wolfie at 15, the son of and growing up under the influence of EVH is probably a HUGELY talented, experienced musician. Derek Trucks started playing slide guitar on stage at age 9. The point is that Michael Anthony being swapped out by a 15-year-old is not an automatic dis or comment on his talent - we aren’t there. Also, I can imagine where being successful in the rhythm section to support EVH and Diamond Dave had, oh, almost nothing to do with musical skills and everything to do with managing personalities and chemistry. And yeah, Anthony has solid backing vocals.
Is it possible that folks are truly riding coattails, totally pointless, and rolling in it? Sure, but I bet it is more likely to be folks we don’t fully see are behaving that way. Typically, if someone is truly not working out, they’re gone - music and bands are pretty Darwinian that way. If they are still around, then they are contributing something even if we can’t see it - or it would be more costly to axe them than to tolerate them for one reason or another. Like, say, Linda Eastman on keyboards and backing, um, vocals :dubious: in Wings - was she dead weight? Uh, yeah - but she kept Paul happy and that’s, apparently, a valid role to help the band along…
I think there are two different groups of people who have made a lot of money in the music business despite not having much talent–those who made it due to marketing or non-musical factors (the pop tarts), and those who rode the coattails of someone who was talented.
As for the first group, it can’t be Britney Spears so long as we have Jessica Simpson, and it can’t be Jessica Simpson as long as we have Ashlee Simpson.
For the second, Al Jardine is a pretty good pick. Others may have contributed less, but few have milked so much out of their minor contributions. In the same vein, let me also submit Stu Cook and Doug Clifford, aka the non-Fogerty half of CCR, who have toured since 1995 as Creedence Clearwater Revisited.
Neither could the Sex Pistols, who were also totally manufactured. Manufacturing acts didn’t start with Britney Spears.
It’s true that Malcolm held auditions for the Pistols, with the idea of promoting his shop, but unlike New Edition and such, he happened to land a writing bass player, an inventive guitarist, and a provocative lyricist who could write a tune you could sing in your head the next day. So it may have been calculated at first, but that was a real BAND. They wrote all their own album.
Elvis made more money for the song writers than they ever would have made without him. So he’s riding the coattails how? Other posters answered this a lot better than I did but the rationale that if an artist didn’t write their songs they aren’t valid is just juvenille.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0 
John Lennon. Link above. Coasted on McCartney’s talent for years. Oh, and Yoko’s too.
In ‘reality’ Biggie Smalls wrote nursery rhymes about being an unrepentent degenerate lowlife.
‘I love it when you call me Big Poppa. Throw your hands in the ayah like you’re a true playah.’, <-----yea genius. :rolleyes:
McDonald’s makes more money than Le Circ, what’s your point? Timbaland makes good music that is distinctive in its own right, P. Diddy rips off successful pop songs and loops 16 bar backbeats underneath. Yeah, he’s a great marketer and assaulting that guy at the Source gave him, ‘cred’, so that the crowd he was trying to glamorize being an evil sadistic fuck to thought he was the right kind of evil sadistic fuck.
So he used his marketing genius to get a 900 lb crack dealer with constricted pork voice to be a famous rapper. Good for him, he’s a great marketeer, but he’s a shitty musician. Biggie Smalls production was terrible and everything P. Diddy has produced has been terrible. They popularized the ‘monotone’ rap, we can all thank them for that, a convention that has banalized rap possibly more than glamorizing beating women and getting rich off of selling poison to little children while gunning down babies accidentally in drive bys. (The real result of the gangsta lifestyle)
Acting like these guys pioneered anything, or contributed anything good to music is ridiculous. Public Enemy had a real message, Das Efx had unsurpassed rhymes, Digital Underground had a funky playful flavor. These guys just shit in our ears and taught us to like it by relentless marketeering. Tupac while being every bit the moral suck that Biggie was had far more interesting things to say, and 1000x more interesting production, and he’s still evidence of how far Hip Hop plummeted in the mid-nineties.
Dr. Dre, is a great Producer, Timbaland is a great Producer, P. Diddy? He’s a great ad man.
Have you heard Gerri’s version of “Its Raining Men?” Aaaaarrrggghh!
& I remember one reason Gerri had so much trouble getting on with Scary was that shewas the slowest picking up the dance moves.
Emma’s voice was pleasant enough - but weak.
Funny that the most famous post Spice Girls Spice Girl should be the completely untalented one.
You think it’s worse than Mel B’s version of Word Up?
At least she had a talent for marrying well…
Totally disagree about Madonna. Anyone who thinks she can’t carry a tune clearly hasn’t listened to her hits. She’s no Whitney Houston, but she’s certainly closer to Christina Aguilera than to Britney Spears.
I think the answer has to be one of the minor Jackson brothers. After Michael’s solo career took off, they sort of rode his coattails because he was once just a fifth of the Jackson 5. But they certainly didn’t contribute much at all.
Anybody who thinks Elvis belongs in this thread should listen to Big Mama Thornton’s version of Hound Dog.
He didn’t write the song, but he might as well have (together with Scotty Moore). It’s an entirely different song.
How much does that guy in the Mighty Mighty Bosstones get paid that just dances around the stage during their shows?
How about the bass player for Aerosmith? I don’t recall anything he does as being particularily noteworthy yet he’s been around since 1827.
Tom Hamilton is an excellent bassist. Not even close to this list. He wrote the key riff to Sweet Emotion as well as others.
I think so also. Wright’s playing/writing is mostly replaceable, but his vocal backing did give a distinctive tone to many songs.
Mason’s playing is irreplaceable though, he is one of the most stylistically distinctive drummers I’ve ever heard.
OK, if we’re going to count manufactured bands then we have to include the Monkees!
But the winner is obviously William Shatner!