I’m a huge Monkees fan and I’m not all that excited about this… and I’m sure I’ll buy the album anyway.
Michael Nesmith is one of my favorite songwriters. Peter Tork is a fairly good songwriter who, when he’s at his best, has written some truly excellent songs. Micky Dolenz is fair to middling as a songwriter but has turned out a few real gems.
This is essentially a Rhino album released under the Monkees brand, rather than a Monkees album. Just one songwriting contribution from each of them. Sure, outside songwriting has always been a big part of what the Monkees were but give me at least half of the album actually coming from them themselves. Hell, it’s a 13 track record, give me just two songs from each of them- that’s 6 out of 13, less than half- and I’d even allow (encourage?) Micky to work with a co-writer.
Would this make it a better album? Honestly, probably not. But it would be a Monkees album that I would be happy to accept as a Monkees album. Again, yes, there has always been outside songwriting on Monkees albums but at the most recent tour that I saw with Micky, Peter, and Mike (a few years ago) they focused on Headquarters and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, Jones specifically because those were the albums that they really recorded as a band. There was a lot of rhetoric about how that was what they were most proud of.
I haven’t seen any details about who plays on the album- anyone have a good link for that? If all three of them play on almost every track then I might be more forgiving. My suspicion is that Nesmith only contributed his track and that Dolenz and Tork only provide vocals (and Peter probably plays on the song he wrote).
This just serves to remind me that I really wish their 1996 album Justus had been a good album. Nesmith’s most recent solo album at the time had been released only four years earlier and featured some of his very best songwriting and yet he only contributed one new song to Justus (and they inexplicably decided to rerecord “Circle Sky”, which already existed in perfect form- there was nothing to improve). Tork’s songwriting wasn’t his best but it was o.k. The songwriting from Micky and Davy was completely cheesy but their songs were in character for the two of them so it kinda works- but their songs made up way too much of the album.
Nesmith’s work as producer on Justus is terrible, the sound of the record is just bad. Having no outside producer was part of the “Just Us” statement of independence but they could have made that statement just as strongly with an outside producer since they did commit to being the only songwriters and players on the album. If Justus had a better producer, at least three new Nesmith songs and at least one more song by Tork (+ one more lead vocal by Tork), it could have been a good album. I really wanted it to be a good album. I was really disappointed that it wasn’t.
So this new album kinda opens up old wounds for me. Had it really been a new Monkees album and, as such, had it been at least “pretty good”, then my disappointment with Justus would have been smoothed over.
Oh, on another note: I’m not at all on board with any tour being promoted as a Monkees tour unless there are at least three Monkees involved. I saw some Dolenz, Jones, Tork shows and I saw a Dolenz, Tork, Nesmith show. I could accept both of those lineups as being Monkees concerts. This new tour with just Dolenz and Tork? No way. Especially considering Tork does so few lead vocals- that makes this pretty much a Micky Dolenz tour “featuring Peter Tork”. It ain’t a Monkees tour. Hell, even when Micky and Davy toured in the 70s they never had the audacity to call it “The Monkees”, the tour was promoted as “Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart” as was the corresponding studio album.
Will I buy the Bluray boxed set the day it’s released? Abso-fucking-lutely!
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