The Archies play a variety of contemporary popular music, consistent with the era in which the comic is drawn. They seem to have a preference for rock and roll, however.

Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge later also joined the group. Every member sings vocals, with Jughead handling the bass voice on a few tracks.

The roles the teens play in the fictional band were:

Archie - Lead Guitar
Reggie - Second Guitar (or Bass Guitar; see below)
Jughead - Drums
Betty - Tambourine/Percussion/Guitar (occasional)
Veronica - Organ/Keyboard
Hot Dog - mascot

An unusual distribution mode for their music was as cardboard records embossed directly onto the backs of breakfast cereal boxes so that the cardboard record could be cut out and played on a turntable (although it should be noted that their music was also available on standard issue LPs and 45s).

The Archies are sometimes jokingly compared to the seminal 60s rock band The Doors, as the Doors also had no bass player. However, there is some controversy over whether Reggie played bass or not; in most drawings, his guitar looks identical to Archie's, making him the band's second (or co-lead) guitarist. On the other hand, the recordings of the Archies' songs regularly featured a bass player, suggesting that Reggie's instrument is bass.

The fictional group was so popular that animated musical groups became a fad of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Most of these groups played bubblegum pop. Often, the cartoon characters of such shows were also teenaged detectives, as an attempt to recapture the success of both The Archie Show and Scooby Doo.

These animated groups included The Groovie Goolies, The Hardy Boys, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, The Banana Splits, The Cattanooga Cats, The Sugar Bears and The Neptunes, as well as an animated version of The Jackson 5ive. A more well-known example is Josie and the Pussycats, which was successful both as an animated series and as a comic book produced by Archie Comics. Other Archie Comics bands from this time included The Bingoes and The Madhouse Glads, but neither ever appeared in animated form.