1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 89. The Monkees – Headquarters (1967)

 

This is the first album where the Monkees got to write their own material and play their own instruments, their third studio album that came after the first season of their TV show; I guess they wanted to demonstrate that they were something other than a manufactured band.

Since it charted at Number 2 to the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper, it can’t be too bad, and it isn’t. The only one that I’ve heard on compilation albums is the delicate, and somewhat wistful, Shades of Grey sung by Davy Jones. The others vary from a little bit jangly Byrds style like You Just May Be The One to more vaudevillean Kinks-esque observational songs like Mr Webster (about a retiree), or Randy Scouse Git (which isn’t, as you might think, a pop at any of The Beatles although it was inspired by a party held by them that the Monkees attended. It’s actually a reference to the character in Til Death Us Do Part played by Tony Blair’s father-in-law, Tony Booth).

Others are little nuggets of oddness, like Band 6 which is a sort of out-take, while Zilch is a bit of vocal play where band members build up a sound picture from repeated tongue-twister phrases; it’s a little reminiscent of Danny Kaye.

Although the overall tone is beat pop, it is a bit more sophisticated than the Monkees stuff that gets more airplay, a bit more experimental. To me, even, some of the songs are just that little bit too short, mostly circling the pop-song ideal of 2-and-a-bit minutes.

Apropos of nothing, these are the second performers on the list that I saw live. Again, during a reunion tour in the late80s/early 90s, minus Peter Tork (replaced by a session musician in a beanie). They were pretty good, I must say. And my mother once met Davy Jones on a train. So there.

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