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The most common incarnation of this trope in music is when featured artists get credit either for backing vocals that would not be immediately notable, or an otherwise trivial contribution to the song. Another common phenomenon occurs when a musician becomes a big star, and recordings featuring them in minor instrumental or backing vocal roles at the start of their career are rereleased with their contribution exaggerated in the packaging.

• Tim McGraw has had this happen many times.
  • His collaborations with longtime wife Faith Hill zig-zag this. "Let's Make Love" and "I Need You" had Tim as the lead artist, but were full-fledged duets that credited Faith; "It's Your Love" and "Meanwhile Back at Mama's" credited her for merely providing backing vocals, while "Angry All the Time" did not. On singles where Faith was the lead artist, "Just to Hear You Say That You Love Me" credited Tim's backing vocals, but "Like We Never Loved at All" did not (although he still appeared in the video).
  • He got credit for singing a far-from-prominent backing vocal on then-labelmate Jo Dee Messina's late 2001-early 2002 hit "Bring On the Rain". Even more, he already had a single out at the time ("The Cowboy in Me", which actually succeeded "Bring On the Rain" at #1).
  • "Diamond Rings and Old Barstools" gives full credit for the backing vocals by Catherine Dunn (his cousin).
  • And again in 2016, when McGraw got full credit for a barely discernible backing vocal on Big & Rich's "Lovin' Lately".
• George Jones got chart credit for Shooter Jennings' "4th of July" even though his only contribution to the song was singing a few bars of "He Stopped Loving Her Today" at the end — a part that was cut out of the radio edit!
• Kenny Chesney:
  • The Wailers sing a chorus at the end of Kenny Chesney's "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven", and still received chart credit despite their part being cut from the radio edit. Strangely, said credit did not show up until the song's second week at #1.
  • Zig-zagged: "You and Tequila" and "Wild Child" gave full credit to backing vocalist Grace Potter (of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals), but "El Cerrito Place" in between did not.
  • "Settin' the World on Fire" gives credit to P!nk, who gives barely noticeable backing vocals, but also sings one line near the end.
  • Kenny also had an inversion when George Strait did not get duet credit on "Shiftwork" until it was halfway up the charts, as Kenny's label had to get permission from George's.
  • An even more bizarre inversion is his guest vocal on Reba McEntire's "Every Other Weekend". A few stations had been playing the song before it was a single, so it was just listed as "Reba McEntire with Kenny Chesney" on the charts. Once it was released as a single, Reba's label couldn't get permission to keep Kenny on, so the radio edit replaced his vocals with co-writer Skip Ewing. However, due to Kenny's much bigger name recognition, most stations continued to play the Kenny version anyway. As a result, it was credited to "Reba McEntire with Kenny Chesney or Skip Ewing" for one week, then to just Reba for the rest of its run.
• As with "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven", David Nail's "Let It Rain" did not give credit to the barely-audible backing vocalist Sarah Buxton until it was just shy of #1.
• After Brooks & Dunn split up, some of their solo singles displayed this:
  • Kix Brooks' "New to This Town" credits Joe Walsh, whose only contribution is a very short guitar solo.
  • Bizarrely, Ronnie Dunn's "Damn Drunk" credits Kix Brooks for backing vocals. As Kix was always the less prominent of the two, it's a Brooks & Dunn song in all but name.
• Similarly to the "Damn Drunk" example, Wynonna Judd's 2004 single "Flies on the Butter" gave credit to Wynonna's mother Naomi, who provides backing vocals. Since they recorded as The Judds in The '80s prior to Wynonna's Breakup Breakout, one is left to wonder why they didn't just credit it to The Judds — especially since "Stuck in Love" four years prior did just that despite being from an otherwise-solo Wynonna album.
• Clint Black also gave credit to his wife, Lisa Hartman Black, simply for singing backup vocals on "When I Said I Do" and "Easy for Me to Say".
• Inverted with Ty Herndon's "It Must Be Love". Sons of the Desert sing a very prominent Call and Response on the chorus, but received zero chart credit. On the other hand, Sons of the Desert did get chart credit on the country and Hot 100 charts for their counterpoint on Lee Ann Womack's "I Hope You Dance", even though the pop remix omitted them.
• Accordionist Flaco Jiménez got a credit on The Mavericks' "All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down" entirely for, you guessed it, playing accordion.
• Another strange inversion: Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman of The Byrds recorded Bob Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" (which the Byrds themselves had previously recorded in 1968) on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's 1989 album Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Volume Two. Even though the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band features prominently on this version, it was credited to just McGuinn and Hillman.
• Brad Paisley's "When I Get Where I'm Going" credits Dolly Parton, even though (as with "Bring On the Rain", above) she only sings barely audible background vocals that you may not even notice the first few listens.
• Also similarly, Alison Krauss and Billy Dean got credit for backing Kenny Rogers on "Buy Me a Rose". Dean can be heard echoing the line "rest of your life" on the final chorus, but he and Krauss are otherwise rather unobtrusive.
• Yet again with Krauss. She and Vince Gill can barely be heard singing backup on Mark Chesnutt's "It's Not Over", but they still got chart credit.
• Sara Evans got full chart credit for singing backing vocals on The Warren Brothers' "That's the Beat of a Heart". To her credit, she sings one line by herself near the end.
• Similarly, John Rich sings backing vocals on Gretchen Wilson's "Come to Bed", and sings just one line on the bridge by himself, but still got full chart credit.
• On Blake Shelton's 2014 single "My Eyes", barely-discernible backing vocalist Gwen Sebastian (a contestant on The Voice, where Shelton is a judge) gets full chart credit.
• KISS has had several examples of this:
  • The group's 1979 album Dynasty featured Peter Criss on the cover, even though he played on only one song.
  • Years later, the group's 1998 reunion album Psycho Circus prominently featured original members Criss and Ace Frehley on the cover and in promotions even though Criss only on one song and Frehley on two or three (Kevin Valentine and future member Tommy Thayer played drums and guitar, respectively, on most of the album).
• Trisha Yearwood:
  • "Like We Never Had a Broken Heart" featured Garth Brooks on backing vocals, which was enough to get him credit on the Canadian charts (this was before they sang duets together and got married). However, Garth did write the song for her (along with one of his usual writing partners, Pat Alger).
  • She got full chart credit for a backing vocal on Josh Turner's 2008 single "Another Try", even though Yearwood had her own single ("This Is Me You're Talking To") out at the same time.
  • Her 2014 single "PrizeFighter" has backing vocals from Kelly Clarkson, who gets full credit despite being only in the background.
• An older example: Gus Hardin (a female) had a Top 10 hit in 1984 with "All Tangled Up in Love". The song gave full credit to Earl Thomas Conley, whose only contribution was a barely-noticeable backing vocal.
• Yet another inversion: A then-unknown Janie Fricke sang the entire third verse of Johnny Duncan's "Thinkin' of a Rendezvous" but did not receive chart credit.
  • She did, however, receive credit for Merle Haggard's "Natural High" on which, as with many examples on this page, she only sang backup.
• Pixie Lott gets a "feature" credit on the Selena Gomez song "We Own The Night" but she really only sings backing vocals. Even so, the backing vocals are almost buried in the mix.
• Todd in the Shadows references this in his review of "We Are Young" by fun. and Janelle Monáe. He says that Monáe's part was so unobtrusive that he never even realized she was singing on it, then mocks the concept by claiming the video is now a crossover with JewWario, who appears on-screen for two seconds to say "hi".
• Colbie Caillat on Taylor Swift's "Breathe". It's supposed to be a duet, but Colbie's voice is so drowned out, it sounds like just Taylor sing. On a flipside, Taylor is this on John Mayer's "Half of My Heart" (who incidentally is an advertised on Fall Out Boy's cover of Michael Jackson's "Beat It", where he only plays the guitar solo).
  • Taylor and featured female artists becoming backing vocals is a recurring issue, it happened with "Snow on the Beach" featuring Lana Del Rey where LDR is barely audible (remedied by a remix called "the More Lana version"), The Chicks on "Soon You'll Get Better" and Maren Morris on "You All Over Me". Fans cheered when the song "Nothing New" with Phoebe Bridgers actually was a proper duet.
• Numerous songs that feature Fred Schneider as a guest just feature him making the occasional shout, rather than singing or rapping anything.
• One of the covers of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" is by Counting Crows featuring Vanessa Carlton. However, her total contribution throughout the song is less than 15 seconds.
• Subverted/avoided in the song "Sixth Avenue Heartache" by the Wallflowers. Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows sings background vocals, but the song is not credited as being by The Wallflowers featuring Adam Duritz.
• Andrew Ridgeley of Wham! did not record very much with Wham!, but was always listed as a member. His contributions included the occasional guitar playing and co-write, but most of their work was down to George Michael and session musicians. Ridgeley was mainly listed as a band member for his sex appeal. This is why George Michael has gone seamlessly from Wham! to his solo career, but Ridgeley has floundered.
• Subverted with the Tim McGraw-Taylor Swift duet "Highway Don't Care", which also features Keith Urban on lead guitar (but not on vocals). The album credits both Urban and Swift, but on the charts, only Swift was credited due to her being the only one of the two who actually sings.
• "Hangover" is supposedly a song by PSY featuring Snoop Dogg. If you heard it without seeing who's credited, you could be forgiven for thinking that it's a Snoop Dogg song with PSY providing backing vocals.
• "Uptown Funk" is supposedly a song by Mark Ronson, featuring Bruno Mars. However, one could easy think this is simply a Bruno Mars song with any random band playing (as opposed to many modern Santana songs where, despite the fact that he doesn't sing, it is easy to tell they are his songs by the guitar style).
• "Time of Our Lives" is a song equally credited to Pitbull and Ne-Yo, and it appears on both their albums. Honestly, it feels more like Pitbull featuring Ne-Yo, since he does 90% of the song. Pitbull does half the chorus and all the verses, while Ne-Yo only does the other half of the chorus and the bridge towards the end.
• Pharrell is credited as a feature in 2 Chainz' "Feds Watching", but apart of a very brief introduction, he only sings backing vocals in the chorus, which is completely unnoticeable without headphones.
• "Darker Than Blood" is by Steve Aoki featuring Linkin Park. It actually feels closer to being "Steve Aoki featuring Chester Bennington", the other members make little contribution, and Mike doesn't rap in the song (he does give his vocals, but it's hard to notice).
• Inverted with Avicii's songs. The featured vocalists are never credited for their contribution, most notably Aloe Blacc in his smash hit "Wake Me Up!", despite the fact they sing the entirety of the song.
• Although "My Nigga" is technically YG's song, featuring Young Jeezy and Rich Homie Quan, YG himself only does a single verse, while Quan actually performs most of the song, doing both the chorus and a verse.
• "The South" by The Cadillac Three gave full credit to guest artists Dierks Bentley, Florida Georgia Line, and Mike Eli (lead singer of the Eli Young Band), who sing "This is where I was born and this is where I'll die" during a Subdued Section. However, most of this part was cut from the radio edit, so they are only heard for a few seconds on the radio edit. Even on the full version, their vocals are so closely blended that it's hard to tell who they even are.
• Ricky Skaggs is credited for barely-discernible backing vocals on High Valley's 2014 single "Make You Mine" in the band's native Canada. However, the American re-release two years later did not credit Skaggs.
• Vince Gill is credited for an almost unnoticeable backing vocal and brief guitar solo on Chris Young's 2016 single "Sober Saturday Night".
• Lonestar lead singer Richie McDonald got full credit for a barely noticeable backing vocal on Mindy McCready's 1996 hit "Maybe He'll Notice Her Now".
• In 1994, record producer Scott Rouse remixed several of Jeff Foxworthy's stand-up routines with musical backing, and usually choruses from contemporary country music artists as well. One of these, "Party All Night", credited Little Texas for singing the chorus... and oddly, also credited Rouse for his production work. This is especially odd since Rouse did several more of these (plus several more for Bill Engvall), and this wasn't even the first of the bunch, yet none of the other ones went so far as to give him a chart credit.
• Strangely inverted on Ronnie Milsap's 1988 hit "Old Folks". The song was featured on one of Milsap's albums, and credited as a duet with co-writer Mike Reid. However, Reid sings most of the song either by himself or with Milsap on harmony, with Milsap only singing the second verse.
• Maren Morris gets full chart credit for her barely noticeable backing vocals on Thomas Rhett's "Craving You".
• Rodney Atkins' 2018 single "Caught Up in the Country" credits the backing vocals provided by the Fisk Jubilee Singers.
• Jim Brickman songs frequently invert this. As Brickman is only a pianist and not a vocalist, all of his singles feature vocalists who are credited, while his name is still on the song for his piano work.
• Ewan MacColl's track "The Manchester Rambler" has appeared on compilations of his daughter Kirsty MacColl's work, on the basis that she sings backing vocals on it. If that's true, then it's historically significant as both Kirsty's earliest known recording, and a unique example of the two generations recording together — but that still doesn't mean you can actually pick her out from the other backing vocalists, and it's by no means certain that she's actually on it at all.

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