Day 192: The Monkees - Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.

My source of knowledge about the Monkees is pretty much exclusively that Simpsons episode where Marge explains her childhood Monkees-related childhood trauma of finding out that the Monkees don’t write their own songs and they don’t even play their own instruments. I also have picked up from somewhere a belief that they’re sort of like the weenier cousins of the Beatles, but I don’t know, I haven’t really listened to them. Today’s album is their fourth release, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., as I need to plug up this hole in my music knowledge.

Album cover courtesy of Colgems Records

The band was originally formed for a sitcom of the same name, of a rock band comprised of four guys who are struggling to find success in Los Angeles. They’ve restored and uploaded some episodes to their YouTube channel and having watched one, it seems fine. I’d watch more and could probably be fairly entertained, but considering that I think television peaked at Baywatch, that’s not saying much. The members were found though an ad in the Hollywood Reporter, asking for guys to come audition:

Madness!! Auditions. Folk & Roll Musicians-Singers for acting roles in new TV series. Running parts for 4 insane boys, age 17–21. Want spirited Ben Frank's-types. Have courage to work. Must come down for interview.

The show ran for two seasons and they recorded albums to go with the show, but members Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork started to crave larger amounts of creative control in the musical process, as they didn’t have say in the songwriting and their parts were secretly recorded by session musicians in the Wrecking Crew. It all came to a head when Nesmith was frustrated and blew the whistle in an interview:

Tell the world that we’re synthetic because, damn it, we are. Tell them the Monkees were wholly man-made overnight; that millions of dollars have been poured into this thing. Tell the world we don’t record our own music.

First of all, I don’t understand how people were surprised that members in a sitcom band didn’t write the songs on the show. Next you’re going to tell me they didn’t even write their own lines! Man alive, were people really that gullible? Considering everything that’s going on in the world, I’m assuming the answer is yes, but still. It’s as if there’d be an outcry in 2008 when young men of the world found out that Megan Fox isn’t really a mechanic.

I do pretty much stand by my original assumption that the Monkees are the less worldly cousins of the Beatles. I’m not saying that the songs are bad, it’s perfectly passable background music and I am tempted to like them more after finding out that they were under FBI investigation for having anti-war messages on stage that the feds considered to be dangerous leftie political intervention, but even that isn’t enough to reel me in. I can’t even find the interest to yammer about it – reader, it was fine.

The Monkees sounds like what it is: a corporate boy band that’s not there to make high art, but just commercially appealing mass pop. Pleasant but soulless, it’s a 6.5/10.