#48 The Monkees- More of the Monkees

More can sometimes mean less…

(RCA Victor)

Released: 9^th January 1967

Producer: Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart, Carole Bayer Sager, Neil Sedaka, Michael Nesmith, Jeff Barry, Jack Keller, Gerry Goffin, Carole King

Topped the chart:

7^th May 1967 (for 1 week)

21^st May 1967 (for 1 week)

2 weeks total

A proper Ronseal album this one. More of the Monkees is, well, you can probably figure it out. More of the music that The Monkees recorded for the first season of their television show, rush-released to cater to their phenomenal success. The record was released so quickly that even the “band” members didn’t know about it—they had to buy their own copies from the store like everyone else.

And so it goes for the material: with a couple of notable exceptions, the songs here feel as throwaway and thrown together as the reheated JC Penny advert used as the album’s front cover. That’s not to say that anything here is particularly bad—the majority of backing tracks are played by the legendary Wrecking Crew (a collective of LA-based session stars including Glenn Campbell, James Burton and Al Casey) and are well produced as a result, but they lack anything approaching conviction. If you throw together a bunch of random cast-offs without really thinking it through, what else do you expect?

Take a song like Hold On Girl. As with many of the tracks here, the Animals-inspired keyboard work is a standout, but it’s married to a weedy melody and insipid lead vocal by Davey Jones. She, Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow) and Laugh follow suit and just don’t match the excitement that runs through their debut.

There are highlights: it’s impossible to completely disregard any record featuring I’m a Believer, the ultimate in 60s bubble-gum fizz, married to that catchy Neil Diamond melody and chorus keyboard hook. Quite why it’s just lumped on at the end as an afterthought though highlights the frustration with the rest of the LP. Despite that, it needs no introduction. Mary, Mary might do however: percussive and thrilling, it’s the only song here written and produced by a band member (Michael Nesmith) and you can tell. There’s an urgency in Peter Tork’s own bassline and a committed, growling vocal from Micky Dolenz that engages in a way the rest of the record does not.

Following the release of the album, The Monkees’ situation with their management became untenable, leading to fist holes in boardroom walls and Monkees mastermind Don Kirshner being removed from the project (tellingly, he went on to create The Archies, a cartoon band where you didn’t need to deal with anyone awkward; like band members). From here, The Monkees themselves took creative control, leading to the surprise success of Headquarters towards the end of 1967. But sadly, due to their diminished popularity in the UK, this is where we say goodbye to the band, before things start getting pretty weird…

Both the world and The Monkees were moving on. A year later, The Monkees TV show would be cancelled as pop tastes became more sophisticated and the whole project would slowly fall apart with infighting and a decidedly teenybopper-unfriendly feature film written by Jack Nicholson. In just three years, The Monkees went from went from very briefly being the biggest band in the world to being laughed off and disregarded. Even in the 1960s, fame could be a fickle master.

Score: 5/10

Tracklisting:

SIDE A

1.      She

2.      When Love Comes Knockin' (At Your Door)

3.      Mary, Mary

4.      Hold On Girl

5.      Your Auntie Grizelda

6.      (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone

SIDE B

7.      Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)

8.      The Kind of Girl I Could Love

9.      The Day We Fall in Love

10.  Sometime in the Morning

11.  Laugh

12.  I’m a Believer