The Monkees (album)
| The Monkees | ||||
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| Studio album by The Monkees | ||||
| Released | October 10, 1966 | |||
| Recorded | July 1966 | |||
| Genre | Pop rock | |||
| Length | 29:24 | |||
| Label |
Colgems (original U.S. release) RCA Victor (original release outside U.S.) Arista (1987 LP reissue + 1988 CD reissue) Rhino (1986 LP reissue + 1994 & 2006 CD reissues) Sundazed (1996 LP reissue) |
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| Producer | Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart, Jack Keller, Michael Nesmith | |||
| The Monkees chronology | ||||
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| Singles from The Monkees | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| MusicHound | |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | |
The Monkees is the first album by the band The Monkees. It was released in October 1966 by Colgems Records in the United States and RCA Victor in the rest of the world. It was the first of four consecutive U.S. number one albums for the group, taking the top spot on the Billboard 200 for 13 weeks, after which it was displaced by the band's second album. It also topped the UK charts in 1967. The Monkees has been certified quintuple platinum by the RIAA, with sales of over five million copies.
The song "Last Train to Clarksville" was released as a single shortly before the release of the album and went to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was the only hit single from the album. "I'll Be True to You" was previously released as a single by The Hollies in January 1965 under the title "Yes I Will".
The album was recorded in several separate sessions around Los Angeles from July 5–25, 1966. Early sessions were produced by the trio of Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart and Jack Keller; later sessions were produced by Boyce and Hart. Michael Nesmith produced two sessions scheduled around the work done by Boyce, Hart, and Keller.
Famously, The Monkees were not permitted by their management to function as a working band for this album, with the group's contributions limited almost entirely to vocal tracks. Eight of the original LP's twelve tracks feature one lone Monkee singing lead vocal over instrumentation (and even backing vocals) recorded entirely by session musicians. Other tracks feature multiple Monkees singing over session players; only on the two tracks produced by Michael Nesmith does a Monkee (Peter Tork) get to play an instrument (guitar). (Nesmith wrote or co-wrote these two tracks.) No tracks on the original LP feature participation from all four Monkees.
The photos in the "film strip" on the left side of the back cover are from two episodes of The Monkees TV series. The first three photos are from "Your Friendly Neighborhood Kidnappers"; the other two are from the episode "The Spy Who Came In From The Cool". Also included are brief stats on each band member (height, weight, age).
Early pressings of the LP cover as well as side 1 of the label featured the misspelled song "Papa Jean's Blues" (Catalog number COM/COS 101). This was soon corrected as "Papa Gene's Blues" (Catalog number COM/COS 101 RE). It was standard practice for RCA to add an "RE" when any one side of a record sleeve had a revision. Open copies of both versions are easy to find. In addition when the album was reissued in 1969 the Colgems symbol replaced the word "Colgems" on the bottom right-hand corner of the reverse side (Catalog number COS 101 RE2). There were no mono copies issued in 1969, as they were phased out altogether in 1968.
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