Results: What Does The Other Guy Do?!: A Survey About Lopsided Musical Duos

England's Wham! chalked up a run of massive r&b-rooted pop hits the world over throughout the duo's mid -1980's duration. Though Andrew Ridgely was credited early on in their career as a songwriter and can be seen playing guitar in this footage of a 1986 show, he wasn't responsible for much of the twosome's heavy lifting. That duty fell to singer George Michael, who would go on to solo stardom eclipsing that he and Ridgely saw. Have you ever known a pair of people with one person whose presence seemed unnecessary?

Whatever one thinks of the commercial country radio permutation of bro country, much of its 2010's popularity may be pinned on the still-active Florida Georgia Line (FGL). Tyler Hubbard, he in the backwards cap in the accompanying footage taken from a 2019 performance, looks to be doing 90+% of the work between him and Brian Kelley, the latter whose job appears to be making them eligible for country music awards show duo/group trophies (of which they've not won many as one may believe their success merits). As I would contend is the case with FGL, can you think of one act whose success contributed to (or confirmed?) the wholesale dubiousness of an entire genre and/or radio format?

Sleaford Mods aren't apt to achieve the heights of notoriety reached by Wham! nor FGL, but, the English Midlanders still have a member whose utility appears minimal, at least in live performance and music video contexts. Jason Williamson's angry, often profanity-laden (the accompanying radio station mini-set is mostly an exception) poetry/vocalese/singing amalgam provides the act's animation complementing the shuffling around of musician Andrew Robert Lindsay Fearn. I'm not on the same page politically with them, but their tracks, wordplay and general execution work for me. Is there art, be ti music or whatever else, you appreciate regardless your philosophical disagreements with its creators?

Then there are Milli Vanilli, the famous duo who danced well and possessed handsome looks but offered NOTHING musically, In the late 1980's-early '90's the European dance pop duo scored multiple hits from their debut album before it was revealed that neither Fabrice Morvan nor Rob Pilatus were doing anything musical on the music credited to them. If anyone at MTV was in on the scam, it didn't stop the guys from, ahem, performing on the cable channel's Club MTV tour, as seen in the accompanying. For you, was the Milli Vanilli hoax a bridge too far in the artifice of popular music?