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Face of the Band: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:DelainAprilRain.jpg|link=Delain|right]]
{{quote|''"Ziggy played guitar
''Jammin' good with Weird and Gilly
''And the Spiders from Mars
''He played it left hand
''But made it too far
''Became the special man, then we were Ziggy's band"''|'''[[David Bowie]]''', ''Ziggy Stardust''}}
In most cases, whenever a high-profile band becomes well known, most casual fans can only identify one particular band member by name. Usually it's the lead singer. Sure, there are a few other people playing the drums, guitar and bass, but who cares about them? They're just background noise, so they don't get much of the publicity, if any at all. One possible explanation for this involves the rise of the music video. For the most part, when a band makes a music video, the camera tends to focus on the person singing, thereby giving a lead singer much more camera time than the rest of the band.
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{{examples}}
== Real-Life Examples ==
=== Christian ===
* Mark Hall of Casting Crowns
* Mac Powell of Third Day
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=== Classical ===
* A ''[[Seinfeld]]'' episode pokes fun at the fact that two of the Three Tenors (Pavarotti and Domingo) are considerably better known than the third one (Jose Carreras).
** ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway?]]'' also made fun of this, during a Greatest Hits game. Colin said to Ryan, "I love the Three Tenors; Pavarotti, Domingo... and the other guy. So I guess I only like two."
=== Comedy / Parody ===
* A lot of people don't even know that [["Weird Al" Yankovic]] has a real, honest-to-God band that he's been recording and touring with for decades.
** Of which most people can only name the drummer (Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz, but only because he's Yankovic's official band historian).
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=== Country ===
* Union Station consists of Allison Krauss and, um...
* Parodied in Joan Hess's ''Much Ado In Maggody'', in which country singer Matt Montana's band consists of four nearly identical guys with four-letter first names starting with "B". Even their manager only bothers to keep track of who's who because the drummer's the only one who can be trusted to drive the tour bus.
=== Electronic ===
* [[The Prodigy]] is that Keith dude who was in the "Firestarter" video... and possibly other people? (It should be noted that Keith Flint started off simply as a dancer and ''founders'' [[I Am the Band|Liam Howlett]] and Maxim are forgotten here).
* Faithless is that dapper, malnourished looking chap Maxi Jazz and two other people. Probably justifiable in that he's the only one who's in ''all'' of their videos.
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=== Hip-hop / Rap ===
* The D12 song "My Band" makes light of this trope. As for D12 themselves, there's [[Eminem]] and... a bunch of other rappers... all from Detroit...
** People usually recognize Bizarre because he's the fat one and Proof because he was Eminem's best friend. (who died a tragic death) It's the other 3 people usually don't recognize (Kon Artist, Kuniva and Swifty McVay) funny in that Eminem was never meant to be an official member.
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=== Metal ===
* Believe it or not, [[Alice Cooper]] was actually a band. Their lead singer, Vincent Furnier, went on to become, well, you know...
* Amon Amarth is mostly known only for Johan Hegg, the lead singer with a huge beard.
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=== Pop / Pop Rock ===
* Averted hard with [[The Beatles]], as almost everyone know all four members of the band.
* When anyone mentions [[The Beach Boys]], people automatically think Brian Wilson. A few think of Mike Love (who is still in a band calling itself [[The Beach Boys]], at least). Considering they're two of the last three living members of the original band, it's not surprising -- but still, it's hard to remember any of those other members. They were often called Wilson though.
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=== R & B / Funk / Soul / Jazz ===
* Particularly bad with 70s funk bands - who usually numbered anywhere between 7 and 15 members.
** Seriously - how many people think The Commodores were Lionel Richie's back up band?
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=== Rock ===
* Semi-averted with [[The Rolling Stones]]. While [[Mick Jagger]] is certainly the band's frontman and the first one you think of, [[Keith Richards]] is pretty well-known even to the most casual Stones fans. Both wrested Face Of The Band status away from original leader Brian Jones early in the band's career.
** The other two, however, suffer from this (even though the drummer is the same since the band started).
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* Okay, a slight subversion: who knows anybody from the Yardbirds other than [[Eric Clapton]], [[Jeff Beck]] and [[Led Zeppelin|Jimmy Page]]?
=== [[Film]] ===▼
▲== [[Film]] ==
* Lampshaded in Cameron Crowe's ''[[Almost Famous]]''. The band Stillwater is given a prototype promotional T-shirt to look at - which shows the charismatic and handsome guitarist in a nice portrait - and [[What Measure Is a Non-Cute?|the rest of the band in shadow]].
** Which gets even funnier in the next scene, when they start to argue over which one of them is going to emulate which "Face of the Band:" "I'm the light, you're the dark! You know, Keith and Mick! Page and Plant!"
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* And let's not forget Satisfaction/The Girls of Summer...The fictional band consisted of "star" Justine Bateman, a then-unknown Julia Roberts ("the slut") and...um....
=== [[Literature]] ===
* Figures heavily in "The Band's Tale" from the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] anthology ''[[Tales From Jabbas Palace]]'', tells the story of the Max Rebo Band, who were seen playing for Jabba in ''[[Return of the Jedi]]''. It turns out that the manipulative singer Sy Snootles took control of the group after it's original leader was killed in a shootout, but she put the cheerful, friendly and easily manipulated keyboardist Max Rebo at the front of the group with the intent of making herself [[The Man Behind the Man]]. {{spoiler|This backfires immensely, as Jabba's agent approaches ''Rebo'', who ends up getting the band trapped in an exclusive contract at Jabba's palace in return for a lifetime supply of free food}}.
=== [[Live-Action TV]] ===
* [[Ant and Dec|The Beautiful Corrs]]. And their brother Jim.
* One episode of ''[[CSI]]'' featured a murdered rock star who wrote all of his band's songs and would have kept the lion's share of the group's earnings if they'd broken up. This is a strong motive for his bandmates to kill him, but it turns out that the killer is {{spoiler|his ex-girlfriend, who was afraid she'd lose custody of their child to him and didn't want the kid caught up in his drug-fuelled lifestyle.}}
=== [[Pro Wrestling]] ===
* [[Chris Jericho]], also face of the band Fozzy when not wrestling, calls himself the "Face of [[Smack Down]]/Raw" depending on which roster he's currently on.
=== [[Theatre]] ===
* In-universe example: in ''[[Dreamgirls]]'', when the Dreamettes break out from the shadow of Jimmy Early and become the Dreams, Deena is promoted as the most marketable face. This leads to original lead singer Effie trying to steal the spotlight back.
=== [[Video Games]] ===
* The third case of ''[[Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney]]'' revolves around a murder at a concert featuring the recurring prosecutor's band, the Gavinners. Despite the band having five members (and an early puzzle requires you to listen to all five musical parts to determine a discrepancy), you only ever see or talk to Klavier and Daryan.
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