The Monkees: The Best Boy Band Ever!

The Monkees are the first and greatest boy band of all time in my opinion. While it's true that The Beatles set the template for all future boy bands in terms of looks, personalities and marketing, The Beatles still came together as a group in an organic fashion and had control over their music and message right from the start. The Monkees on the other hand were put together through a casting call for a new TV series at the time being pitched by Don Kirshner.

The Monkees would codify what the boy band would be going forward, which is that each member is auditioned by a manger or music industry insider and they would be picked more for their looks and filling out a designated personality than for musical talent. If they happened to be musically talented that was a happy accident. The music of boy bands would also be written for them and they would be told how to act. Now this wasn't completely new in 1966, in fact this is how the industry ran more of less until Rock and Roll. Most singers didn't write their music and they were treated more as marketable personalities than real people. Rock and Roll began to change all that as bands began to write and perform their own music themselves and the rock bands were rougher around the edges as well.

This would send many songwriters and studio musicians into a panic during the mid ‘60s, because they all thought they would be out of jobs soon since these rock bands were not looking to them for new music anymore. The Monkees were basically the solution to this problem that was rock and roll in the mid ‘60s. The Monkees would be marketed as a rock band, but their music would be produced and written the old-fashioned way. There would also be a TV series, which could market and promote not just the music but the Monkees brand, which could be sold back to the audience at home through lunch boxes, t-shirts and more. There would be many hurdles and problems ahead though, which were unforeseen by Kirshner and company. These unforeseen issues would make the Monkees the most fascinating boy band ever, but I'll get to that later.

First let's go back to how I stumbled upon the Monkees. As a young child I actually don't remember the TV show despite it being syndicated a lot during the 80s and early 90s. Also, I probably heard some of their music like I'm a Believer or Daydream Believer, but it didn't make any kind of impression on me like The Beach Boys music had done. Really the first time I remember seeing the Monkees was the Brady Bunch movie from 1995. At the time a lot of that movie went over my head but I still really enjoyed it anyway. My mom though got a lot more of the jokes than I did and she caught the multiple Monkees references.

First there is the scene at the dance where Marsha Brady convinces Davy Jones to perform at the school and the student body is left unimpressed initially but the female faculty members turn into screaming fans and rush to the stage to watch Davy perform. Later in the film the Brady kids win a school talent show by doing a very hokey and retro dance number because the talent show judges are the Monkees. My mom laughed at all this back in 1995 but as I said it went over my head. I ended up re-watching the film years later and I think it's rather funny with a lot of jokes I get now that I didn't get then. What stands out now about the Brady Bunch movie is what a time capsule film it is. By trying to make the 60s look dated and hokey the movie acts aggressively 90s with many references to Grunge, Gen X and MTV. In fact, the Davy Jones performance is more funny to me now because he ends up winning over the student body due to the backing band turning his music into 90s Grunge! This shift to Grunge startles Davy at first, but he finds his groove quickly. Let me tell you I would totally buy a 90s Grunge album by Davy Jones! Watching the movie isn't just an exercise in 60s nostalgia anymore, it now also feels like a time capsule for the height of the Alternative Nation and Generation X.

Next I remember when my family had first moved to California in early 1996 and we were briefly renting a house in Pacific Groove for a few months. One night we ended up watching the Monkees comeback special that played out like an updated episode of the TV series. While I wasn't quit sure what was going on I was starting to get a better idea of who The Monkees were and what they were about. I also remember the gag of the special being that they were running over budget and couldn't afford to do certain things, which made it pretty meta for the time.

Still the first time the Monkees' music caught my ear was in the summer of 2000. We had moved again as a family, this time to Rhode Island. That summer I ended up staying with my Aunt Anne on Martha's Vineyard and working at her video rental store called Island Entertainment. My Aunt had been running that video rental store since before I was born and it just closed up shop a few years ago meaning it was probably one of the longest running video stores in the entire country. Back in 2000 it was always packed with people during the summer. It was around this time that VH1 was doing a Behind the Music for the Monkees and a made for TV film about their rise and fall. To advertise the film VH1 constantly ran ads promoting the movie, which showed the group performing their first big hit Last Train to Clarksville to a crowd of screaming girls. I wasn't listening to classic rock or oldies music yet (Pop divas like Madonna and Janet were as far back as I went at that time), but I remember thinking it was pretty darn catchy. In fact, I kept humming it and singing the chorus to Last Train to Clarksville as I worked at the video rental store that summer. I also remember another teenager my age was working with me that summer and he too ended up singing Last Train to Clarksville from time to time. We both admitted it was a pretty catchy song.

By 2002 I was starting to move further away from modern top 40 and into classic rock and alternative. I had my friend make me a mix CD of oldies and alternative rock and that mix had The Monkees' three #1 hits on it, Last to Clarksville, I'm a Believer and Daydream Believer. I would start listening to those songs constantly, especially Last Train to Clarksville, which quickly became a favorite of mine. I would add the songs to many playlists on iTunes during college, but I didn't delve deeper into the group's music until after college. I remember picking up their greatest hits in 2009 when I visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Listening to it I realized how many good songs they had. I was initially very taken with Little Bit of Me, Little Bit of You, Valleri and especially Pleasant Valley Sunday, but soon I liked the whole greatest hits.

Nonetheless I figured that the greatest hits album was all I needed by them since besides the BIG acts like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, I didn't buy the original albums for most baby boomer acts and stuck to best of compilations. Then Davy Jones died. Now by the time he died I had been living in Washington D.C. for a few years and was working at the Courtyard Marriott and living with my parents and brother again too. After Davy died, I went on to YouTube on my computer and started watching clips of the Monkees. I started with with the songs I knew like Last Train to Clarksville and Daydream Believer, but as YouTube kept suggesting more songs I kept watching clip after clip and I realized just how many good songs these guys had. In fact, everything I heard was catchy and ear grabbing. They didn't seem to have a bad song as far as I could tell at this point.

Soon after I decided to purchase the group's first 6 albums between 1966-1968 and that is when I truly became enamored with The Monkees. Those 6 albums collectively represent one of the best runs of albums I have heard, especially for the 60s. Really only the Bealtes tops it for me in that decade! What's great about The Monkees' music is that while it was manufactured, they were also competing for chart space during one of the most exciting and adventurous times in pop music history. The way rock music took huge leaps forward every year of the 60s is hard to fathom now, but truly each year, sometimes each month, felt like a watershed moment for pop music. As a result, the Monkees music is of high quality because the competition that influenced their songs were The Beatles, The Byrds, The Beach Boys, The Lovin' Spoonful, etc. In a way The Monkees music takes all the exciting and musical innovations of the time and boils them down to their pop essence making them as accessible as possible while still having the thrill of the new during the late 60s. Also, because The Monkees have a team of top writers giving their best work, there is very little filler on these first 6 albums, which outside the Beatles and a few other acts, is not the case for most albums I have heard from the 60s, at least across that many albums.

Something that also goes unsaid a lot with the Monkees is how musically talented most of them actually were. Mike Nesmith was an accomplished songwriter who was always fighting for more artistic control over The Monkees music. Peter Tork meanwhile was also a solid songwriter, who was the group's best musician and helped teach the others how to actually play their instruments later on. Mickey Dolenz meanwhile gets my vote for the most underrated vocalist of the 60s. Mickey is a phenomenal singer who can get a lot of emotion and nuance across in a way that doesn't always come easy for many singers. Finally there is Davy Jones who is....well let's just say he was the cute one who played a mean tambourine.

The group's first album is a solid start that contains some filler, but already contains high points like the The Theme song and Last Train to Clarksville. With this album Don Kirshner had accomplished his goal to create a group from scratch that with enough top-notch writers and musicians could successfully compete with the Beatles and The Rolling Stones for chart space. Kirshner had more to be happy about with the group's second album More of the Monkees, which stayed # 1 for weeks on end and became their best-selling album period. Of course, he released the album behind the band's back, which infuriated Mike Nesmith who was never comfortable with the group's slick image and manufactured music. Eventually things came to a head during a contract negotiation where Kirshner said the group had to record Sugar, Sugar. This didn't go over well with Mike Nesmith who ended up punching his fist through a wall. Kirshner severed ties with the group shortly thereafter, but both parties ended up being right though. For Kirshner's part he had assembled one of the best pop albums of the decade. Listening to it now, More of the Monkees is stacked with great pop songs. It says a lot that it not only contains the group's biggest hit, I'm a Believer, but that I'm a Believer is saved for the end because the music before is so good you are not itching to get to I'm Believer.

Nonetheless the group had been labeled frauds by the growing rock press that valued authenticity above all else and The Monkees needed to prove they were more than just a fake band from a TV show if they hoped to keep going. This split from Kirshner and a desire to be more in control of their music and be viewed as "real" is a fascinating moment for pop music history in general. Rock was becoming bigger and bigger but it also wanted to separate itself from the way pop music had been done. The Monkees had tried to ride the rock wave the old school way, but they were labelled bandwagon hoppers who had no real talent and missed the point of Rock & Roll as result. Thus, the split between rock and pop music truly began from that point forward. Rock would get all the accolades and respect, but pop would end up dominating the charts and radio more and more as things moved forward in the coming decades. In the present we see that pop ended up winning, because rock now is languishing commercially & artistically since it has straight jacketed itself into a very defined sound and attitude whereas pop is thriving on all fronts commercially and artistically now.

Kirshner also realized he couldn't control The Monkees because they were still people who had real musical talent so he took the song Sugar, Sugar that the Monkees had passed on and had a cartoon band called The Archies sing it and the song went #1. In the years that followed boy bands would be easier to control as pop music moved further away from rock and real instrumentation and became a producer’s genre. Now the producers truly held the keys to great pop songs since you had to have a huge expensive major label studio to make pop music that sounded good on the radio. This made musical rebellion harder for the boy bands that followed The Monkees. Not impossible mind you as there were solo careers launched from many a boy band in the ensuing decades, but there wasn't a true rebellion from the boy bands themselves against their own sound and image like there had been with The Monkees.

Still the Monkees were right to pass on Sugar Sugar and chart their own destiny, which resulted in Headquarters, their 3rd album, but the first where they played all their instruments. While it lacks the obvious high points of I'm a Believer and Last Train to Clarksville, Headquarters is a very accomplished pop/rock album from 1967 with no filler. It also sees the group delve deeper into storytelling mode and not just singing love songs. On the song Mr. Webster the band sings about a bank teller who stops bank robberies and his boss keeps promising a raise that never comes, so Mr. Webster ends up stealing money from the bank right under their noses. It's a clever song that you would not expect from a group like The Monkees, but which makes a lot of their music more compelling as their lyrics can remind me of the Kinks or the Byrds from time to time. I couldn't envision N Sync or Backstreet Boys singing a song like Mr. Webster. Still while Headquarters went #1, Sgt Pepper was released the following week and buried it, but the group still proved they had enough commercial momentum left to keep going on their own terms.

The group's next album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, & Jones Ltd is my favorite album by the group. While they don't play all the instruments anymore the album overall is a big leap forward coming off the summer of love. The album sees the earliest uses of the moog Synth in songs like Star Collector, which might also be the first song about rock groupies! There is also lots of psychedelic touches and flourishes throughout the album that make it more trippy and more vibrant, but still within the confines of smartly written pop songs for the masses like The Door Into Summer, Love is Sleeping and Words. It also has the brilliant Pleasant Valley Sunday, which lyrically rips apart the middle class, the same middle class who watched their TV show and bought their albums, but the music is so catchy I bet most people overlooked that. Again, it's a great example of how the Monkees could surprise you while still being catchy and commercial as all get out. This album represents the peak of their struggle between commercialism and artistry. It would prove to be the group's last # 1 album though not their last successful album.

The group's 5th album, The Birds, The Bees and the Monkees, was the last album released while the TV show was still on the air and contains the group's last big hits in Daydream Believer and Valleri. I view The Monkees' 5th album of their White Album as Davy Jones, Mickey Dolenze and Mike Nesmith are breaking apart and charting their own courses forward. Davy Jones sings the sappy ballads, Mike Nesmith has one foot in the past with many pre rock influences and one in the future with psychedelic production and techniques while Mickey sings some of the groups most underrated material such as PO Box 9847.

Still it was clear the band was no longer on the same page and with the TV show cancelled shortly thereafter they needed to do something to shake things up and shake things up they did! Head, the movie and the soundtrack album, is one of the most surprising and risky projects ever attempted in all of pop culture. The film, which was shot by Jack Nicolson and co-stared Frank Zappa, I hear is bizarre as hell and from what I've seen of it I can see why. It also tears apart the group's manufactured image too. Honestly, it's hard to wrap your mind around The Monkees doing a movie like Head. It would be like if One Direction 2 years into their career decided to a do a movie with David Lynch featuring Rob Zombie that was a giant middle finger to their career and image. The album is weird as hell too. It features lots of random bites, spoken word segments, jokes, and more that again poke at the group's image and brand. In between all those weird tracks though you have some of the best music of the group's career like Porpoise Song, Circle Sky and Can You Dig It, which are as psychedelic and alluring as any music released in 1968. My favorite song though is As We Go Along, which is a beautifully somber ballad that feels like the goodbye to the group.

In a way Head marks the end of the Monkees, since after that their commercial prospects were shot and Peter Tork left the group. The group soldiered on as a trio for 2 more albums before Mike Nesmith left, leaving just Mickey and Davy who put out one last album in 1970. After that Davy and Mickey broke up the Monkees for good. That said, in the ensuing years the Monkees music would only grow in stature thanks to the reruns of the TV show, but also due to other artists growing up on their music. In fact, I remember Kurt Cobain saying his first 2 musical influences were The Beatles and The Monkees. Kurt said in an interview that he didn't notice a difference between them for years because he just heard the music and loved the melodies for both groups. I also remember him saying that just because The Monkees' music was manufactured doesn't mean it's not good. Meanwhile the Monkees did put out one final album after Davy passed away that featured contributions from Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, Noel Gallagher of Oasis, Rivers Cuomo of Weezer and Andy Partridge of XTC proving The Monkees influence on the succeeding generations of rock bands ran much deeper than most could have predicted back in 1967. In a way, critics are quick to point out the influence of The Beatles in bands like Oasis, Weezer and Nirvana, but it's clear that The Monkees had a huge influence on those bands as well.

As for me I started spreading the gospel of the Monkees starting with my parents who knew the hits but not the albums. When I put together an iPod for my Dad for Christmas one year and we went through my whole iTunes library he was surprised by how many good songs there were by The Monkees that he didn't know. I told the DJ for my wedding that I wanted as much music by the Monkees played during the reception as The Beatles and Stones. He ended up playing Valleri and I'm a A Believer, which both filled up the dance floor fast.

In a lot of ways, the music of The Monkees represents a lot of what was great about music in the 60s without getting bogged down by over indulgence and some of the psychedelic meandering of that era too. Something that didn't even escape the Beatles. Granted the group would indulge by Head, but by then they had a pretty perfect run and they still managed a few more classics like Porpoise Song and As We Go Along.

Still the Monkees's music is a great example for being underrated more for labeling and misconceptions than the quality of the songs themselves. Since the group was not as authentic as The Doors or The Rolling Stones they are not as good despite the fact that they had just as many good songs as anybody else during the 60s besides The Beatles. It shows how male rock critics can get too bogged down in things that don't matter with music & labeling as well as acting like gate keepers to a fault. Really at the end of the day the music should speak for itself and while it's taken a while it does feel like over the past 5 decades the Monkees music has stood the test of time and is some of the best pop music ever created. Yet it was also The Monkees' willingness to break free of their image and formula that makes their music and journey more compelling than most of the boy bands who came later. It's music that at it's best can appeal to rock and pop fans equally. It's the tug of war between manufactured & authenticity, commercialism & art, rock & pop that helped make the music of The Monkees feel like the best of both worlds and it continues to resonate to this very day. The Monkees were the first boy band, but they were also the best, and everyone owes it to themselves to listen to their material from 66-68, because you might just fall in love with it like millions of people did back then and continue to do so today.