Music is music. Who really cares if it comes from a fake band or not? Maybe it’s not the person’s real voice, fingers playing the guitar or the band is made up of a bunch of actors and haven’t even gone on tour.

Most of you are probably a little too old (or cooler than me) to remember that MTV had a fictional boy band movie called “2gether” back in ‘99 in the height of the boy band craze. Naturally, being a teeny bopper 14-year-old, I fell victim and was in love with the faux pop group. Their songs made fun of the typical, sugar coated and nearly sexually explicit songs of their real counterparts. Even if you hate this kind of pop music, you have to appreciate the humor of it all:

FYI, I still have their CD and movie. Moving along! Here are my favorite fake bands:

Stillwater (Almost Famous): I was pretty bummed when I found out that Stillwater wasn’t a real band. More depressing was that Jason Lee (the lead singer) wasn’t actually singing. In fact, he has a pretty awful voice. Stick to acting and having babies, Jason. Stillwater managed to have all the bravado, edge and cool that rock bands in the ’70s had. Including the drugs.

The Wonders (That Thing You Do): One of my favorite movies, The Wonders (or Oneders) had that wholesome, band next door look going on and great songs co-written by Tom Hanks (who has a habit of slipping in a song or two from this movie in films his company produces). Fun Fact: Johnathan Schaech, lead singer of The Wonders is from Edgewood.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (movie of same name): Combining a punk rock sound with John Cameron Mitchell’s Broadway-esque voice has had an amazing impact on anyone who has seen this movie and listened to the lyrics. I listen to the soundtrack frequently, almost forgetting that there’s no such person as Hedwig or Tommy Gnosis. Now that’s good music.

Spinal Tap (This is Spinal Tap): This gets a little tricky since Spinal Tap have performed on talk shows, had there songs in commercials and appeared on Saturday Night Live (where band members/actors Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer have all been cast members) as well as The Simpsons. It’s kind of hard to deny the greatness of a song about big asses, though.

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