After a short debate with a few trusted confidantes — all of whom told me I was being a dork and should just take the honor and be proud — I decided to stick to my long-held, semi-quixotic beliefs. I fired off a message to the Hall saying that I would never be a voter until the Monkees were at the very least nominated. They hit back with a terse two word reply that’s become something of a catch phrase around the home office.
Why did I decide to die on this particular hill? Simply because the Monkees are undoubtedly the most popular, influential, and culturally important artist not yet in the Hall. Plus, I’ve been a die-hard since I was in short pants, and the flame has never even flickered. They are the perfect blend of incredible pop songs, winning personalities, great singers, and timeless icons. Did they write all their own songs and play their instruments? No, but you could say the same about quite a few artists who have been inducted. It’s a tired argument and we’re not here to rehash it.
Honestly, the Monkees don’t have to be in the Hall. We all know how important they were, we all know their hits, we all love them! Rhino Records and their chief Monkees archivist Andrew Sandoval certainly love them too, and they’ve kept up a semi-steady campaign of reissues that have done a lot to shed more light on the group’s music. A few weeks ago, a deep dive into one of the group’s best albums, 1967’s Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., was issued as a lovingly packaged and researched box set.
The album itself was the follow-up to Headquarters, the first album the group had total control over, picking the songs and playing all the instruments. Once they proved they were a “real band”, they returned to a hybrid formula where they had input but called in session players as needed. The result is another brilliant album that’s filled with frothy, hooky pop songs like the Davy Jones-sung “She Hangs Out” and “Cuddly Toy” (which was written by Harry Nilsson), the jaunty anti-establishment “Salesman” sung with glee by Mike Nesmith, swirling psych-pop rockers (“Love is Only Sleeping”), and sweet ballads (“Don’t Call on Me.”) Throw in one of the great pop songs of the day — the insistent “Words”, which is sung by Micky Dolenz with a brilliant mix of restraint and unfettered abandon — and that makes for a near-classic LP.
There’s more though! The band help invent country rock on the jingle-jangling “What Am I Doing Hangin’ “Round?” and delve into electronics on two incredible songs. Micky Dolenz somehow got a hold of an early Moog synthesizer and deploys it on “Daily Nightly,” a trippy little nugget of psychedelia that packs a lot into two-and-a-half minutes and features him twisting knobs and flipping switches like he didn’t bother to read the manual. The Moog also features on “Star Collector”, but they brought in session cat Paul Beaver to work the machine, and he plays some more measured and musical solos.
The new box set includes mono and stereo mixes of the album, 2025 remixes of quite a few songs, alternate takes, backing tracks, vocal tracking sessions, and TV mixes; all sorts of treasures for the sort of fan who would think nothing of sitting through an entire disc of alternate backing tracks. That disc does yield some real nice finds like acoustic demos of the Peter Tork songs “Tear the Roof Right Off My Head” and “Can You Dig It?”, plus the backing for a Goffin/King-penned song — “Yours Until Tomorrow” – that the band never finished. Elsewhere, the new mixes sound shiny and sleek, while the alternate takes yield some fun twists like a Nesmith rap on “Salesman” and the band breaking into raucous shouting on a take of “She Hangs Out.” The TV mixes are interesting edits; it’s fun to pick out the differences between them and the album versions, especially if you’re a trainspotter (like me) with time on your hands.
Rhino and Sandoval have done another fine job of digging interesting gems out of the vault and really giving fan(atics) a gimlet eye view of one of the Monkees’ best albums. They should send a copy over to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — maybe they’ll see the light and the band will finally be nominated for the Hall before the last member passes away.
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