Nope. He was pretty much considered to be a Renaissance man when it came to instruments. (No cites, since I’m typing from an airport right now. However, I’ve read this from multiple sources.)
His vocal range was admittedly limited, but even then, with the right song he could do a mighty fine job.
Ummm…ummmm…I really don’t know what to say here.
Featherlou has raised a good point: most of the pop boy bands today are much like the Monkees, except with less talent. They’re put together by a promoter for marketing purposes and don’t write their own songs. The Monkees would have fit in the same mold and would have been unremarkable.
Tork was the only Monkee allowed to play an instrument on their first album. He was working as a musician (with Stephen Stills) when he auditioned for the group; he and Nesmith were considered the musicians of the group (Jones and Dolenz were the actors).
Not to threadshit, but since people have already started the (favorable!) comparison to today’s vapid pop singing heads, let me tell you why I hate the Monkees.
I didn’t always hate them, I just thought they were throwaway music with an occasionally catchy tune, until I saw the Bob Dylan special on PBS. Dylan was talking about how they measured the worth of an artist in his circle in the 60s, and said something like "it wasn’t whether you had a good voice or if you could play an instrument, it was if you had a unique message. So people would ask ‘how was this artist?’, and you be like ‘well, they had something to say…’ " (emphasis mine)
Dylan’s not my favorite singwriter, but DAMN! How much more cynical can you be? A light was thrown on in my mind and I now lump them with all the others who twist exuberance to their own ends without anything to say.
Dylan was/is one of my favorite songwriters. But I didn’t have to watch the PBS special to remember 60’s attitudes. I was “too hip” to be a Monkees fan. But, looking at the history of pop/rock music, they come out OK.
Not every musician needs to be “the voice of his generation.” Back in the day, I’d rather hear beautiful Judy Collins or exotic Joan Baez do “covers” than listen to the nasal whine of Phil Ochs. (I agreed with his politics, but found his voice quite annoying. Still do.) Dylan’s nasal whine was somehow less annoying–& I loved it when he went electric. Although some who’d enjoyed his “message” got really hacked off…
That Bob Dylan. Oh, what a tortured artist he is. :rolleyes:
I like Dylan, but this kind of pretentious nonsense drives me up a wall. There’s room for serious poets (with limited singing ability) in pop music, but there’s also room for exuberant bands who just want us all to have a good time.
Besides which, the Monkees were not without “message” songs. Like Pleasant Valley Sunday, for example.
(I wonder what Bob would think of a band like the B-52’s? I wonder, but then again, I really don’t care.)
You guys are missing the point that they said “we’ve got something to say” in their lyrics, which lets me fire full bore at them instead of just casually dismissing them like I did before.
Then again, Dylan may have just been joshing. He’s been known to confuse journalists & annoy his fans.
You are taking a TV theme song waaaayyy too literally.
Monkees music had plenty to say. It said “Let us entertain you for a few minutes,” and that’s good enough for me.
You know, not every piece of music is sublime. Nor should it be. Apparently Dylan thought a whole lot about himself to make a statement like that. It’s a shame when geniuses know they are.
Oh, now that’s not fair…they were just trying to be friendly. Did you watch them sing and play? They were of a young generation, you know.
I won’t argue with you on that point, mostly since the current boy banders are so heavily produced in the studio it’s hard to tell how much is natural ability and how much is tweaked. Plus, I have loved The Monkees most of my life - my parents gave us an album of theirs to play with as kids*, since they were too busy listening to stuff like Hank Williams and Hank Snow.
*They also gave us The Dave Clark Five, The Beatles, and The Mamas and The Papas. I was much older when I realized that five year olds playing The Mamas and The Papas was not standard.
ETA: Forgot to say what I think about only listening to music with a frakkin’ message. Put me firmly in the “entertainment” camp - if it has a message, too, that’s just gravy.
Or Last Train to Clarksville, for that matter.
Ha, **featherlou ** – I got a Glenn Miller LP for Christmas when I was 5. And my sister got Tommy Dorsey. And this was 1965.
My favorite Monkees song! I’m a big fan of the Monkees, and I don’t really get the criticism. Before the era of the Beatles, bands did covers all the time, and singers didn’t necessarily write their own songs. It’s still like that in a lot of the music biz…I was looking at a Trace Adkins Greatest Hits CD the other day, and he didn’t write a single song on it. Sure has a nice voice, though. Some songwriters don’t sing, and some singers don’t write songs. Mickey Dolenz had a great voice, no reason to hide that light under a bushel.
Not their lyrics. Lyrics by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart.
I guess you don’t have to listen to lyrics, if that’s not your sort of thing.
Also, the line in context is …
“We’ve got something to say: Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees!”
So it’s not pretense. It’s just emphasis.