The Best of the Monkees: Good for Monkees Fans

And I'm a Monkees fan.

I admit it. I'm 27 years old, and I love The Monkees. I really, really do. My sister and I grew up watching The Monkees television show on Nick at Nite. My mom bought me a couple of Monkees cassettes and that was the end of it. Even my best friend takes pictures of various Monkees memoribilia whenever she goes to a Hard Rock Cafe. I'm a fanatic. When I was younger, my friends would listen to the likes of The Jets, Miami Sound Machine, Debbie Gibson and Tiffany (with the exception of my best friend Dionne, who adored - and still adores - Richard Marx), while I sang along to Mike, Mickey, Peter and Davy.

Sad, but true.

My car has a CD player, but no cassette deck. I don't have a CD burner, either, so my Monkees tapes have been collecting dust. I'm not the type of person to go out and buy CDs for myself, so I just settled for listening to an oldies station and hoping a Monkees song would come on.

A few months ago, I won a $300 gift card to FYE. Even though I won this gift card for myself, I shared the wealth. I bought my mom, grandmother, sister, and all of my cousins the D or DVD of their choice. I had a little over $20 when I was through, so I splurged on myself.

I shelled out the $19.99 remaining on my giftcard for The Best of the Monkes. The white package with the trademark red guitar touting MONKEES seemed to call my name. I had to have it.

The Best of the Monkees is a two disc set, complete with a small book containing a brief history of The Monkees, a list of the songs on the CD, a bunch of photos, and a lyric book to use for the karaoke disc. The white cover is actually a cardboard sheath for the plastic CD case. The two discs are separated by a piece of plastic on a hinge, making certain the discs don't get scratched.

The first disc is the red one. It contains 25 favorite Monkees songs. Of course, the first song on the compilation CD is (Theme From) The Monkees, which is the song that played at the beginning of their TV show. In order, the songs are: