“The worst album in the history of the world”: When The Monkees went to war with their label
Rock ‘n’ roll had barely begun in earnest before 1956. Blues, folk and the so-called lowly art forms had been consigned to bars, juke joints and other working-class gatherings. But then came Elvis Presley, the advent of vinyl and radio, and within a decade, we were arriving at The Monkees when bigwigs figured that there was a buck to be made.
In many ways, they are considered the ultimate ‘manufactured’ band. The pre-Fab Four were famously partnered by producer Bert Schneider and filmmaker Bob Radelson. It’s a sign of how evident the changing times were that Radelson had actually had the idea for a show about a band in 1962, prior to The Beatles touching down in the States a few months after the assassination of JFK in February 1964 and all the ensuing mayhem. However, his pitch was initially rejected.
A few years later, it was clear to everyone that this whole rock ‘n’ roll malarkey was set to make an indelible mark on the mainstream, and TV might as well get in on the act by presenting a savoury brand for the masses. This is where The Monkees came in, but it says a lot about how serious the revolution became that soon the band weren’t happy just cashing cheques and wanted to prove themselves as artists.
After all, they were artists all along. This is a point that seems to have been missed in the unfurling story of the band. Yes, they were assembled, but the producers didn’t just put together any Tom, Dick or Harry. Each member cast – Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork – had been actors and musicians in their own right before being cast. Thus, to call them a fake band is a touch of a misnomer. In truth, the process was not all that different to Bob Dylan pulling together his own rock ‘n’ roll backing band when he sensed the days of folk were dying out from a roster of his own auditionees.
I suppose the difference that Monkees maligners will point out is that one was done with commercial appeal in mind, and the other was done with a revolution. However, any denigration hinges on whether you think pop manufactured for the mainstream is inherently artless and without cultural merit. Ironically, in this fight, you might find an ally in The Monkees’ very own Michael Nesmith.
In a paradigm of pop culture, once The Monkees caught on, the four folks at the centre were being quashed out of the creative picture. Nesmith felt like the whole concept was losing its artistic identity, and they were purely being hard-lined for profit by the bigwigs. However, the show’s music supervisor, Don Kirshner, thought the boys in the band were merely meddling in a well-oiled machine. He ruled the roost with an iron fist, much to the chagrin of the boys in the band.
Soon enough, the most commercial outfit in the history of music suddenly had the worst advertising department in the world. Kirshner had stipulated that Nesmith, as a songwriter, was only allowed to contribute two measly songs per album regardless of his work’s quality. He would also put our material without The Monkees’ consent, refuse to let them record, and essentially used their name to spin off what he thought might be hits with the royalties logged to his name.
Of course, this seems to mark him out as not only a villain of The Monkees but art in a wider sense. Thus, the band stood fiercely in opposition and began to use their voices to deride the well-oiled machine of which they were the unhappy central cog. However, it is not without irony that the songs that Kirshner picked for them to perform, like the Neil Diamond number ‘I’m a Believer’, were so suited they now stand up as perfect examples of pop over half a century later.
Nevertheless, Nesmith and his mates also saw at the time that he was precluding further perfect hits and ushering the future of pop culture closer towards the dystopia that many now see it as. So, even if it was to his own commercial detriment, he made a stand. When Kirshner snook up More of The Monkees without the band’s approval while they were out on tour, Nesmith turned to the press and called it “the worst album in the history of the world.”
This set in motion a rather obvious war. Kirshner began trying to subtly undermine the artistry of the actual band members and made sure the press knew that they were entirely manufactured, while the band tried to push for more creative control in any way they could and lashed out at anything beyond their approval. Now, this sorry predicament seems to be indicative of the increasing commercialisation of art that went hand in hand with the art of the people finally having an amplified voice.
The tale is an oddity, but it seems rather tragic – indicative of a misstep in culture – that The Monkees are now largely seen as an entirely manufactured band whose hits go to show that even prefab pop can be catchy, as opposed to a very clever and prescient art project that showed how great songwriting performed with sincerity can have worth and be virtuous even if it’s inherently designed to be commercially concurrent.