Unlike The Beach Boys, The Monkees don’t have a single definitive album which provides a dividing line in their catalog.  Rather The Monkees’ discography falls into roughly three different phases, each with its own defining power structure.  The first section of The Monkees career is a bit of feudalism, with a number of lords and nobles jockeying for a power position under the King, Don Kirshner.

Since The Monkees were initially conceived and created as a TV show rather than a band, by a pair of Hollywood producers named Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider.  The two of them hired Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart to create the music that the band on this show would be performing.  Since the music for the show was initially seen as simply merch to help promote the main product (the show), Boyce & Hart were given somewhat free rein over the first album, save for a couple of songs.  The first five songs on this playlist (Theme from The Monkees, Last Train To Clarksville, Saturday’s Child, Take A Giant Step, and Gonna Buy Me A Dog) represent this period of the band.

However to many people’s surprise, the music started outselling the TV show, so NBC installed Don Kirshner as the music supervisor.  Despite having no actual musical ability himself, Kirshner had become somewhat famous as an impresario with a knack for predicting big hits.  In a way, he was the Simon Cowell of his time – famous as a music tastemaker, but not as an actual artist or producer or songwriter.  Once Kirshner was installed, Boyce & Hart became just one of many factions vying for the favor of his highness.

Despite the fact that only two of their songs ended up on the next album, Boyce & Hart wrote and recorded enough material for a complete follow-up.  As was typical during the Kirshner years, everyone was producing as much music as possible for Kirshner to cherry-pick from for the albums.  However, many of the songs Boyce & Hart recorded during this period ended up either being re-recorded or simply placed wholesale on later Monkees albums.  So while this is a chronological introduction to The Monkees, it is chronological in terms of when the songs were recorded and not necessarily when they were released.  The next six tunes (She, I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone, Words, Valleri, Tear Drop City, and Looking For The Good Times) represent this period of the band, and are often the highlights of their more inconsistent later albums.

While Boyce & Hart might have been a little upset that Kirshner had usurped so much of their power, it was nothing compared to the acrimony of Don Kirshner’s Judas (or John Dean): Michael Nesmith.  Initially hired by Bob & Bert to play the part of musician Mike Nesmith, the real Nesmith took Bob & Bert’s vague mumblings of getting to make the music for the TV show as a promise and hired the Wrecking Crew and starting producing his own material.  Perhaps to placate (or patronize) the hot-tempered Nesmith, Kirshner would place a pair of Mike’s tunes on each of The Monkees’ first two albums.  While Mike’s submissions to Kirshner were often rejected for being completely (and possibly deliberately) noncommercial, he was the one making the most forward-thinking and interesting music of this period.  Years before the Eagles, or The Flying Burrito Brothers, or Sweethearts Of The Rodeo or Nashville Skyline, Texan Michael Nesmith was trying to fuse country into rock.  The next eight tunes (Sweet Young Thing, Papa Gene’s Blues, The Kind Of Girl I Could Love, Mary, Mary, I Won’t Be The Same Without Her, I Don’t Think You Know Me, All The King’s Horses, and You Just May Be The One) represent some Michael’s best work of the period, although most of it remained unreleased at the time not given the chance to influence they eventual birth of country-rock just a few years later.

While Boyce & Hart may have been ungrateful and Nesmith was antagonistic, Kirshner did have his allies and lackeys.  While all that music was being recorded in L.A., Kirshner, who hated to fly, has stationed on the East Coast, giving him access to all the Brill Building writers who were desperate for work now that the Beatles made writing your own songs so expected from a rock band.  Some would become famous after the stints writing for The Monkees (Carole King, Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka).  Kirshner’s favorite henchman was a man named Jeff Barry.  Jeff was unapologetically a company man and more than willing to deliver the hits that Kirshner wanted.  While these may be some of the cheeziest, schlockiest, most calculated songs in the Monkees catalog.  However, they were also very successful.  While Boyce & Hart initially established The Monkees’ sound, it was Jeff Barry who produced their biggest and to this day best-known hits.  The final six songs (She Hangs Out, I’ll Be Back Up On My Feet, A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You, Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow), and I’m A Believer) represent Jeff Barry at his best – but also show why a palace coup was going to become unavoidable.