When it comes to music appreciation, originality, authenticity and the masterful use of instruments, traits and abilities associated with musicians, are usually important selection criteria for consumers, who choose by those aforementioned elements whether or not to buy the artist’s products.
Usually, that is. In the case of the Los Angeles-based mid-1960s band The Monkees, seemingly all of those necessities and common categories never were an issue. On the contrary, the Monkees, neither wrote songs or played their instruments either in the studio or on TV. They were not a “real” band, as they were actors cast for a new TV show in 1965. For that purpose, external songwriters wrote the music, to be performed by studio musicians. Instead, the Monkees – David “Davy” Jones, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith – were the opposite, or the antithesis of the performing artist, and were called anything from a fake, a joke, a commercial enterprise and were given other names. The TV show “The Monkees” was broadcast in 58 episodes from 1966-1968 and with it, lots of definitions of the serious and creative pop artists were corrupted simultaneously, as many critics argued.
Even though they (at least) sang their own songs in the studio, everything else concerning their musical output was pre-manufactured and designed only to generate record sales, made possible through a unique partnership of TV production company Raybert Productions Screen Gems (on NBC), record company Colgems Records, and music publisher Don Kirshner.
In fact, the band and anything related to them was a study in manufacturing and processing. They “… drew attention to the components of the industry necessary for any band or musician working in this commercial medium. They brought all the behind-the-scenes machinations of the pop industry – the publicists, the producers, the promoters, the studio musicians, the songwriters – onto the stage.” Such argues author Tom Kemper of the School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California, an expert on 1960s music from California.
Had there been in 1966 a manual such as ‘How to make millions by presenting a band of non-musicians,’ the Monkees would have been the perfect example. In fact, that band would have been a study in how to succeed.
The most surprising effect of the TV show, however, was the band’s success in the Billboard charts. As many of their songs became instant hits, in 1966 both “Last Train to Clarksville” and “I’m a Believer” stayed in the US charts in position 1 for weeks. As did “Daydream Believer” in 1967, all numbers successfully competing with singles from British bands of that time, mostly by the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, very few American bands could provide such a success. The Monkees released 11 LPs (including two albums several decades later), their 1968 album Head is, actually, rather good.
Their commercial success proved that previous concepts of creativity, some dating back to the 19th century, when the artist alone, as individual genius was responsible for producing great works of art, obviously was not around anymore. Only ten years earlier, in the heyday of rock’n’roll, such a success of an American band would have been impossible, even though there were many attempts to create pop musicians from scratch, who at least could sing a little. It was the combined efforts of management in TV production, publishing and recruiting musical talent from outside that in the 1960s, the Monkees ‘happened live on TV.’
Their commercial success also proved that audiences did not care at all if the music or its creators were one and the same; instead, the outcome, the polished, perfect and easily accessible product had to meet with current audience expectations. In principle, the concept of the Monkees is similar to today’s GCI (Computer-Generated Imagery) in movies. Or AI generated pop songs that “borrow” from recent successful tunes of other artists. This is what audiences consume with pleasure – and will buy again – namely the similar sounding and looking mainstream merchandise that must not be real or original, but simply meet current expectations.
One major reason for the cancellation of the TV show in 1968 was the band’s desire to finally write and perform their own compositions, which would have been one step in the classic performing-artist direction. As, by the way, California always had a brilliant reputation for generating solid musical output. However, the studio and the producers declined that idea massively, as they would have lost all control of the band and the commercial output, so by late 1968 the Monkees were history.
Kemper’s six chapters revolve around those artistic, philosophical and even ethical questions in terms of pop philosophy and, in particular, the tastes of 1960s audiences. Questions like why would consumers celebrate those who hardly had anything to do with the finished product? Why were they so easily manipulated and why millions of record buying customers still celebrated the group even after it was publicly known that the Monkees were nothing but TV actors, a great hoax played on millions of audiences? Authenticity (in creatively making music), the one cornerstone so important in the case of blues artists, jazzmen, and the British working-class bands seemed to be irrelevant in the case of that L.A. band.
The subject has aroused rock critics ever since the 1960s, and still today, as we have proven by this very title, the Monkees phenomenon keeps amazing music critics, sociologists and scholars of popular culture.
“Does it matter how the music originated? Does it matter how it all came together if you enjoy the song? It turns out the answer is mostly yes, at least for particular factions of rock culture.” But still The Monkees “… exposed why authenticity may not represent a legitimate issue at all,” wonders Kemper. And, undeniably, there also were the fans who “… employ a weighty barrel of rhetorical devices to defend the band on the scale of authenticity. Each argument pleads to garner the Monkees their proper and earned appreciation.” Kemper’s chapters 5 “Air Guitar” and 6 “A Quartered Head” outline the effects of that clash of (creative) ideas at length; they reveal the dangers of a heavily supervised commercial system that originally created the band, but which, in turn, would not allow them independence and real creativity.
The Monkees: Made in Hollywood is an entertaining title on one of the greatest pop swindles in history and the L.A. music scene of the 1960s. It comes with lots of lore on how several of their songs were produced, renamed or recycled or which inspiration or song by another band created what riff in a Monkees recording and so forth. The book is compiled with the thoroughness of an insider who could connect all the separate determinations and unique characteristics of that Californian scene and the network of producers, managers, songwriters and record publishing companies behind it.
Review by Dr. A. Ebert © 2024
Tom Kemper. The Monkees: Made in Hollywood. Reaktion Books (Reverb Series), 2023, 248 p.