It Was 50 Years Ago Today: ‘The Monkees’ by The Monkees
December 20, 1966
The Monkees by The Monkees
#1 on the Billboard 200 album chart, November 12, 1966 – February 10, 1967
By the time The Monkees debuted on NBC on September 12, 1966, the single “Last Train to Clarksville” had already been out a month. While any TV series that focused on a would-be rock band obviously needed to deliver music — and The Monkees had been engineered to sell records — not too many fake rock bands from movies and TV featured material of that caliber.
Its quality signaled that The Monkees wouldn’t treat its music as a joke or an afterthought, but deliver songs that could become genuine hits in their own right.
Indeed, “Last Train to Clarksville” would top the Billboard Hot 100 on November 5, 1966, eight episodes into The Monkees’ run. A week later, the “Prefab Four’s” first LP, also titled The Monkees, soared to #1 on the albums chart, a position it would maintain for the rest of 1966, into early 1967.
The Monkees experiment had become a genuine phenomenon, helped in large part by the fact that the band emulated the madcap humor and chipper personality that the Beatles had displayed in A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, but were quickly moving away from. (The Monkees topped the Billboard 200 less than a month after Revolver, the Beatles’ manifesto of artistic intent.)
But as with “Last Train to Clarksville,” The Monkees (both the album and the TV series) also succeed because they were so much better than they had to be. The show borrowed techniques from European art cinema, like jump cuts and montage, for comic ends, with sharp, sly writing closer in tone to the classic Marx Brothers movies than any other sitcoms of the era.
The Monkees album, likewise, was packed top to bottom with enjoyable songs, top-flight musicianship, and thoughtful production values.
At this point in time, the four Monkees — Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Mike Nesmith, and Peter Tork — were handled by producers primarily as actors who would contribute vocals to their songs, rather than any sort of self-contained actual band, despite the fact that all four had at least some degree of instrumental ability.
The Monkees’ vocal tracks were backed by the famed LA studio musicians of the Wrecking Crew, and the songs were mostly written by professional writers, including Gerry Goffin and Carole King (“Take a Giant Step”) and future Bread frontman David Gates (“Saturday’s Child”).
Yet there was already resistance fomenting within the Monkees ranks, particularly from Nesmith, already a professional musician and songwriter who bristled at being part of a “band” where he had minimal artistic input.
Ultimately, Nesmith would manage to get two of his songs, “Papa Gene’s Blues” and “Sweet Young Thing” (the latter co-written with Goffin and King) placed on The Monkees. He was even permitted to produce those two tracks, though not to play an instrument on them; instead, he enlisted Tork on guitar, making him the first Monkee to actually play on their records.
Nesmith’s pair of proto-country-rock tunes are highlights of the album, despite the fact that they venture furthest from the pseudo-British Invasion sound that the Monkees were originally intended to have.
The bulk of the tracks on The Monkees, however, were penned by songwriters Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, the team behind “Last Train to Clarksville.” Their best contributions on this album include the jaunty “(Theme from) The Monkees,” a shortened version of which opened every episode of the TV series; the earnest ballad “I Wanna Be Free,” modeled on the Beatles’ “Yesterday”; and “This Just Doesn’t Seem to Be My Day,” a charming country-popper chirped by Davy Jones.
Less successful but still enjoyable are the generic teen dance tune “Let’s Dance On” and the novelty closing track “Gonna Buy Me a Dog,” which primarily exists as a frame for Dolenz and Jones to riff jokes over. (Boyce also co-wrote “Tomorrow’s Gonna Be Another Day,” another album highlight, with Steve Venet.)
Boyce and Hart also produced all the songs on the album, apart from Nesmith’s two tracks. The team established a level of sonic sophistication to the Monkees’ sound that belied their manufactured origins and even outstripped many of their “authentic” contemporaries.
They also recognized something special in Dolenz’s vocals that elevated the band’s sound. While the theatre-trained Jones had initially been tapped to be the Monkees’ frontman, Boyce and Hart gave the majority of the lead vocals to Dolenz, transforming the group from jokey TV characters to genuine rock contenders.
Jones, for his part, would carve out his own niche with ballads and lighter tunes. In addition to “I Wanna Be Free” and “This Just Doesn’t Seem to Be My Day,” Jones also contributes the album’s lone cover: “I’ll Be True to You,” previously a UK Top 10 hit for the Hollies under the title “Yes I Will.” It’s also the album’s gooey low point, although it fulfills the quota of romantic ballads that the Monkees’ female teenage fanbase craved — and, after all, they were the group most responsible for the Monkees’ early success, so they deserved it.
Thanks to fans’ efforts, as well as the surprisingly high quality of the record, The Monkees reigned at #1 on the album charts for 13 straight weeks. It was dethroned in February 1967 by the only album that could possibly beat it: More of the Monkees, which itself stayed at #1 for 18 weeks and became the bestselling LP of 1967. (That year, the Monkees topped the Billboard 200 for a combined 29 weeks; Sgt Pepper’s managed only 15.)
But while the band would eventually seize artistic autonomy and release even better albums, The Monkees marks the birth of the phenomenon, with the excitement of a seemingly endless bright future.
It Was 50 Years Ago Today examines a song, album, movie, or book that was #1 on the charts exactly half a century ago.
