Track vs Track: The Monkees vs More of the Monkees

The first two Monkees albums go to battle!
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[@PapaNicksMusic]

Ahhhh, a soothing balm after weeks of sifting through crappy 21st century albums… I hit the like button before I even started playing the video. It’s the Monkees, for Christ’s sake! I could quibble with a bunch of stuff here, but let’s face it: there are no bad decisions in this exercise. For example, I’d put Papa Gene’s Blues first overall on The Monkees, and I’d have to go deep into Pisces et al or Head to get to a song that can stand against it. (Papa Gene’s Blues is the main reason I became a Monkees fan when I was a kid, and it’s still one of my all-time favorite songs.) But I can’t really argue with you regarding where you put it. The catalog is just that good. (Now, if you put it below Gonna Buy Me a Dog, we’d be having words here…) I really enjoyed this video, Paul!

[@PapaNicksMusic]

Quick addendum: I forgot that I had The Monkees go up against More of when I did my Monkeebowl video (available at fine KZbin apps near you), and in a straight track listing matchup, I had The Monkees beating More of by a score of 7 to 5… For what it’s worth…..

[@reddoggames3011]

I have been listening to Sweet Young Thing alot lately

[@AsItShouldBePodcast]

As it should be!

[@johnlorinc2081]

Well all right! My picks: Monkees Theme (TOTALLY by default because TDWFIL is hot garbage); I Wanna Be Free (and I agree with you the faster version is better); I'll Be True to You (the background vocals help make the song better than it actually is); When Love Comes Knocking (but not by much); Let's Dance On (the first Monkees "Believer" song that hit number one is a classic, but the burnout factor.....); This Just Doesn't Seem to Be My Day (but it's close); Sweet Young Thing (the fact that it was written by Nesmith gives it an edge); Mary, Mary (that Glen Campbell was a nifty guitar player....and it came from Nez.); Look Out (I know.....I'm picking a non-Nez track, but I prefer it slightly); Sometime in the Morning (one of Micky's best vocals); The Kind of Girl I Could Love (barely, because Saturday's Child is great); Take a Giant Step (among my top ten Monkees songs) Great video once again!

[@strangebrew5545]

Absolutely agree on " I wanna be free' love both but the fast version rules ! Also " Sweet Young Thing " and " Take a giant step " wish I could take a step back in time, thank you Paul! This was so much fun ❤

[@redgreen82]

The Day we Fall in Love...so terrible. I recently ranked all 241 Monkees songs and that one came in at 236. The only ones that ranked lower were Headquarters CD "bonus tracks" and songs from Pool It! So yeah, the worst song released pre-reunions.

[@summertime_blooz]

Fun video! Ive been watching the TV show on the weekends lately, so I know most of these songs. Thanks Paul.

[@lorileewhitbord8260]

Love this trac vs trac. Really fun. So interesting to see how you arranged your favorites. I always favor Mike. Thanks for All you do!

[@romelovesdan]

"Well, Awwwwriiight! "Just saw an older video of you singing....cool. Was not aware.

[@UniversalBlackRocker]

Well awwwright...Happy Memorial Day Paul!! So glad that you did track versus track on the Monkees' first two albums. What's crazy that I also got copies of the first two albums from last month since the record store here in Pittsburgh called Jerry's Records does the dollar sale which they do that twice a year. And I've decided to get those Monkees albums to my collection along with other LPs and CDs. As much as I love both of the albums, More Of The Monkees have stronger songs besides couple that you've mentioned that I really didn't care about because you can tell that the guys where becoming musicians and songwriters in their own right. Especially Michael Nesmith. But love The Monkees

[@davidlessenberry8736]

The first album may be a little more consistent, which seems weird since it was a rush job. (OTOH, "More of the Monkees" might have been even more thrown together in order to get a new record on the shelf.) I agree: the second album has much higher highs, though. Strangely enough, both albums fit on a single burn CD, so I was listening to both of these earlier today before I even noticed this video had dropped!

[@curly_wyn]

Kramzer, formerly of TLM, DESPISES The Monkees! And I watched their ranking of The Monkees albums and it became clear that Kram was just super duper indoctrinated and willfully misinformed to hate them. Yes, it’s true they didn’t write a lot of their own songs initially, but they eventually became a great band and even in their early days they were still nice and airy, breezy pure pop, and that’s not a bad thing at all! 😊

[@AsItShouldBePodcast]

That's exactly right, Kramzer was brought up by his father to hate them, and it was clearly bred deeply into him. Funny thing is that many of the other bands from that time, like The Byrds, had session musicians on their albums too. Terry Melcher brought in the wrecking crew on those first two albums. But it's always been ok, and in fact downright cool to like The Byrds, so there's nothing to see here...

[@davidlessenberry8736]

@@AsItShouldBePodcast I thought of The Monkees as a "real group" long before I ever saw the show in 1985. (I was aware of their history, of course.) It is a totally different experience, and I wish more people could have had it. My perspective on the group seems completely different from what I pick up from other fans AND the haters. People choose to ignore one very simple fact. The production team was under tremendous pressure to release an album slightly before the tv show debuted. No matter what, that first album would have employed established songwriters and session musicians, just to get it finished on time. Most bands come together due to shared musical tastes, propinquity, etc. The Monkees didn't happen that way, but I think it can be a major strength on their later releases. They are nothing, if not diverse.

[@curly_wyn]

@@davidlessenberry8736 in 1985? Oh that’s right! Because from 1985-1986, The Monkees suddenly had a huge resurgence in popularity! They even scored their last hit from the reunion in 1986, with a cover of a Mosquitos power pop song!

[@marciap-vc]

Finding it very hard to argue with anything said in this in this video!

[@AllMediaReviewsPodcast]

nice! Now do Headquarters vs Pisces!

[@AsItShouldBePodcast]

Yeah, I did do that one a while back but it was before I was ranking the tracks, so it’s ripe for a re-do.

[@nathanalfaro2936]

You know I love Nez - but I would choose Saturday’s Child too. In contrast - I would have chosen She over Take A Giant Step. All great tracks. I have fallen back in with Auntie Grizelda as of lately - more so with the instrumentation than the cornball lyrics and singing.

[@cheddarcheese7928]

I don’t know about “I wanna be free”..I do like the album slow version just a little better..I like that it’s was there as the Monkees version of The Beatles “Yesterday”

[@davidlessenberry8736]

Paul, I actually prefer "More of the Monkees," but our final scores would still be very different for a couple of other reasons: Your format is interesting, because the initial ranking of the tracks really affects the subsequent matchups. For example, I agree that putting the theme song on the first album was a TERRIBLE idea. (If the production team doesn't consider it a "real album," why should I?) However, I would rank it much higher, so that immediately throws off our matchups. Also, I consider "Sometime in the Morning" Micky's best vocal performance of his career. So, it is automatically beating my top track from "The Monkees," no matter what. The Monkees are the only band that I can think of that poses this challenge: Which way did you discover them? I was born in 1972, so I never saw the tv show until 1985. By then, I had heard all of the original albums, except "Changes." (On the bright side, the show overplays a few tracks from the first album, because they only had so many songs to use in the first season. I never had that problem.) In other words, I never had either the baggage or nostalgia from the show. In my world, The Monkees were just another group on the oldies radio station. Without any other context, I think their first two albums are almost identical, in terms of quality. EDIT: As I mentioned in another comment, both of these albums easily fit on one burnt disc. I was listening to them in my car earlier today, before I knew this video had dropped. Fun coincidence!

[@dubuqueblues69]

It’s interesting how my opinion has also changed on quite a few songs since I was a kid….like Take A Giant Step and Hold On Girl. I agree with most of your choices here, but I’ve actually always loved When Love Comes Knocking. Neil wrote some great songs and that’s no exception. I always love when you do Monkees videos, Paul. I also really enjoyed your albums ranking. It’s interesting to me that their second album was their highest selling, kind of by far, but it’s one of my least favorite ones. You’re right that it has a few heavy hitters on it, but it has some garbage on it as well, I would Agree that the day we fell in love is the worst song in their catalog….. Even much worse than ladies aid Society! And I’m a believer an excellent song but so played out and almost like the main song they are known for today. That bugs me. It also bugs me that they used that song so much in the first season that I actually made my own copies and replaced it with other songs I like that were never used in the TV show. I would sure love to have copies of some of those later Saturday morning reruns with other songs dubbed in. I remember watching, many of those as a kid like tapioca tundra being used on hillbilly honeymoon. I don’t have proof and I sure don’t have a copy of it, but I know I remember it! Anyway, loved the video and thanks for that!

[@AsItShouldBePodcast]

Thanks! Oh yeah, there are a bunch of weird alternate tracks on later cuts of episodes. They even had some with tracks from Changes dubbed in! I remember there was a period when Steam Engine was on the Monkees on Tour episode in place of The Girl I Knew Somewhere. Saw it that way quite a few times.

[@davidlessenberry8736]

I always feel like "Pleasant Valley Sunday" best captures both the spirit of the show and the four guys' personal values.

[@davidlessenberry8736]

I always feel like "Pleasant Valley Sunday" best captures both the spirit of the show and the four guys' personal values.

[@tonyschannel7438]

Why do you look like Anthony Vincent (the 10 second song guy)'s twin brother?

[@AsItShouldBePodcast]

Just to keep you on your toes