Trying to ape the Monkees

By Andy Hughes

TO SUCCEED in the fickle world of pop music you

increasling need to be a pop actor, as well as a pop act.

SClub7 were launched on the back of an all-singing, all dancing TV series and now hope to mimic the success of the Spice Girls movie Spice World, when they start filming for a full-length feature later this year. And,boy band A1 have announced they are to star in a 'Monkees-style TV show, which they start filming next month.

The Beatlesbegan it all with thinly-scripted fun feature films supporting seriously heavy weight tie-in albums. But it was the producers of The Monkees who pioneered the idea of packaging a pop group into a television series and using this as a vehicle to promote spin-off singles and albums.

When The Monkees disappeared from the world musical stage in the early 1970s, they took the cheesy genre with them.But now the pop musical is back with avengence as part of the manufactured pop packages.

< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />