To an extent, I think the Wilburys were a joke taken too far. George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne (who is never mentioned without the qualifier "frontman of ELO,") all friends or at least professional acquaintances, set out to write a B-side and becoming a band with a fictional history and their own label (Wilbury Records,) what we end up with is the yardstick by which all supergroups should be measured. Whereas the general logic behind supergroups is "What if this guy from this band made a record with that guy from that band and some other dude that's really good," the Wilburys made a record very unassuming under pseudonyms (though it wasn't really a big secret.) A record whose brilliance lies in its seeming ordinariness, with songs fun, cheeky, rocking, moving, and riddled with slide guitar.