The Monkees Reissues

Artist: The Monkees
Title: The Monkees, More Of The Monkees
Genre: Pop-Rock

Hey, hey it's the Monkees! How many of you remember that tagline? Thanks to my older sister, I was introduced to the pop kings at very young age. I was only 8 years old back then and it was a very impressionable age for me, growing into the prepubescent stage searching for idols to look up to. I remember my sister getting all of her rave magazines like 16 Magazine and Tiger Beat and pulling out the pictures of the band, spraying them with perfume and hanging them on her wall, man I thought she was so weird. A few years later, I would be doing the same thing with sports idols, minus the perfume of course, and then eventually I would gravitate towards rock stars in my early teens.

Hearing all of this music now is an absolute joy because not only is it good music, it brings my childhood right back to me. Those feelings are becoming more sweet and precious with every year that passes. Rhino digs down deep again and reissues The Monkees and More Of The Monkees, two albums that made history. This was an entertainment breakthrough, much like full-length movies by bands like The Beatles. It caught everyone off guard including the creators and it turned into a huge win for the music industry. The brainchild of Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider came to be by advertising for band members in Variety. Don Kirshner was also a key component in the band's recorded output. The TV show was about a bunch of guys taking you on their madcap adventures and in between singing you their songs. If you watch the shows today you realize just how cornball it all was, but at the time, it was brilliant and it all worked.

The albums are remastered on two discs, both mono and stereo versions (both versions sounded great to me) with bonus tracks, including interesting booklets telling the story of the band with archival photos. Not only did I get an education on what really happened all those years ago, I heard many tracks that may have never graced my ears.