Wenner Blackballs Monkees

Are you being serious in that third paragraph there?

About Gene Pitney? Yeah, I think he sucks.

About all those other bands? I am serious. 9 days out of 10, when considering what music I want to hear, I would take the Monkees over all of those groups I mentioned. And if you look at my last.fm charts, you'll see I'm not kidding. Monkees are currently #24. The Band is #159, Floyd is #327, Van Morrison is #395, and those other bands aren't even listed.

• Jake, May 7, 2007 3:25PM ∞

I'm with you. Always had much love for the Monkees, even preferred them to the Beatles and Beach Boys for a bit when I was a wee chap.

I like Tork sticking up for Mickey Dolenz as a great vocalist. He certainly was, and I hadn't thought about it particularly until then, but if you had to pick, his voice was the single best thing about the band.

I believe you, just never got too into the Monkees myself. Guess I could never shake the "prefab" label from my mind. Of course, I do enjoy a good "Daydream believer" every now and then and my guilty pleasures include "That Thing That YOu Do", and anything by Cap'n Geech and the Shrimp-Shack Shooters, so who am I to talk?

Mickey was a great vocalist, Nez was a great songwriter, Davey was British, and Peter was...well, he was Peter. That's enough for me to say they get in.

Seriously though, listen to Last Train to Clarksville and tell me it's not better than anything the Rascals did. Listen to Stepping Stone and tell me it's not as bad ass as Get Off My Cloud. Nine Times Blue is as responsible for alt.country as Hickory Wind. And The Porpoise song is just fucking great--idiotic, but great: the definition of psychedelia.

Count me in as a Monkees lover. Sure, they were totally pre-packaged - so what? 'Last Train To Clarksville' is an awesome song.

And they didn't even have ProTools back then.

Oh yeah, for the first two albums they had the greatest session musicians in America playing: Sonny Curtis, Hal Blaine, Glen Campbell, James Burton, et al.

And the songwriting was totally top-notch. "Pleasant Valley Sunday" (Goffin/King) is an incredible indictment of the consumerism blossoming at the time.

There are too many great, great Monkees songs to list.

Fun fact: Neil Young plays lead guitar on "You And I" (which is not a great song, but it's got a badass guitar part!).

• Jake, May 8, 2007 8:56AM ∞

Don't Neil and Stills play on "As We Go Along" too?

I mean, fuck Jann Wenner AND Steven Stills, sure, but Gene Pitney is totally the most awesomest pathos-rock singer ever. That's a proud, proud lineage. Del Shannon and (not gay!) Neil Sedaka and Paul Anka for sure, but then again he did all that funky-for-white shit with Odia Coates. There might have never been a Morrissey, Marc Almond, Mark Eitzel or Billy Mackenzie without Pitney, the patron saint of those who whine.

"look out for that display of p.j. proby wine!"

Re: "As We Go Along"

Neil, Carole King and Ry Cooder and a couple other people play guitar, but no Stills. Jack Nitzsche arranged it.

• Jake, May 9, 2007 5:58AM ∞

Poop. I was sure Stills was on there too. I love that song. One of my top five Monkees songs.

I remember reading an interview a few years back (maybe more than a few) where Joe Strummer gave props to the Monkees...I think his step daughter was really into them at the time and he talked about how much better it was than her being into whatever teen product o' the week was currently being marketed. So, yeah, anything that got the Joe Strummer seal of approval isn't bad in my book.

This thread made me pull out my old Monkees vinyl. I don't have it in heavy rotation, but how can you argue with Stepping Stone? Fantastic pop nuggets...

Plus, I mean, have you seen Head? It's awesome! The Monkees are totally not just flakes on Victor Mature's scalp.