Why am I reviewing an album that is 9 years old? Cuz I can, that’s why. See there has been a whole lot of Monkee talk around and I really haven’t jumped in. We have reviewed Davys show, reported his sudden death and plugged Dolenz upcoming gigs.
All well and good but aren’t these just some TV show talking heads?
The Best of The Monkees is a must have for any fan of big wheels and pixi stix. As a child of the 70s I was a day late and dollar short to be part of the Monkees revolution. I have an older sister who was a huge Davy fan and of course, then so was I. Who couldn’t love him? Adorable and safe and with that swoony Manch accent? A keeper.
I can clearly remember driving up and down the street on my bike with streamers with Monkees tunes playing in my head. I remember the summers of the ice cream man pulling up and literally throwing myself down the stairs to make it out in time to buy something on a stick. That was a huge big deal- that’s what the cool kids did.
The Partridge Family and The Monkees.. Monkees fans were cooler cuz really the Partridges toured with their mom.. how square is that? So of course I was cool. The songs on this LP were recorded from 1966 to 1969, so basically during my life span of birth to three. Yet as a young Hel I can vividly remember hearing ‘Cheer Up Sleepy Jean” through the wall as my sister and her friends squealed.
When I was in Junior High, The Monkees television series was in syndication and every day I would bolt home to watch it. By this point my sister was more involved with Elton and Cat to really give a crap about those four boys in a basement. I was able to fall in love with their antics. Davy, the cute one, Mickey the dorky one, Mike the intellectual and Peter the gross one. Yup and I scoured vintage record shops and book shops and scored some awesome Monkee swag as well. I was single handedly bringing them back and my peers were not amused. There was this one kid in my class named David and HE liked the Monkees so of course, he was the coolest kid ever and one of my first crushes. We would talk about the band and the previous days episode, I would show him the old Tiger Beats I had found and yeah… that’s it.
By high school I was on to a harsher sound. Still loving The Monkees of course, how couldn’t I? They were so square they were cool Still never really grasping the whole drug culture thing or the Beatle comparisons or the Dolenz, Jones Boyce and Hart bit.. who cares, this was music. Suddenly Mike was the cute one, Davy still number one but hey.. Nesmith wasn’t so shabby, Dolenz was annoying and Tork ‘the dork’. But they held court on my cassettes just the same. So a typical mixed tape would contain the Ramones, The Clash, The Buzzcocks, Squeeze and The Monkees. Say what? Yup, and it fit and to this day my playlist includes them.
The song “She” is ridiculously beautiful have you listened to the freakin lyrics? What a bitch! Its sung with conviction as well, I gotta give Mickey props on that one. “You Just May Be The One”, is farther out than far out. “I’m a Believer”, seriously one of the best songs ever done and you forget about it all the time. Simplistic and upbeat with some really funny sing back lines, “Sometime In The Morning” is corny as hell, sometime Dolenz should be careful with the sappy, it gets thick.
“Look Out”, is a way cool song and I never really realized how many songs by The Monkees are about a girl named Mary. Which just upped their value about tenfold! The beats are so simple and the lyrical stories are so clean and concise. No real deep thought involved, bet there is boatloads of subliminal meanings in these things but know what, don’t care. I appreciate this type of music because its mindless. The Monkees weren’t trying to start a revolution, well not obviously. Some freak can harp in and say the band were involved with the Vietnam war and did acid and were swingers and honestly I don’t care. I like taking them at face value. We as culture and those who love music make music an intellectual sport, relax fools, just dance around the living room.
“Free” I’m sure carries all sort of hippy trippy crap but really it’s the perfect tune for making dinner as is “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You” and if you can find someone to sing with you on that one it’s a double score. Hell I bet me and Iman can rip that one up- ‘cept Id forget the words and he would claim to have written them (then they stole them.. the bastards…)
Here I am, 45 years old with a whole lot of experience and I can still jet back to dancing on top of my parents coffee table to “Pleasant Valley Sunday”. Come to think of it- this song couldn’t be more relative today. As my kids band plays in the basement of suburbia…huh..maybe they were more timely than we gave them credit for. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I need a change of scenery….