Noticed you didn’t mention the fact that “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (2006)” also generated a movies of the same title.  After a moment’s thought, it is probably better to leave this unstated.

RIP Davy Jones.

 www.dailymotion.com/video/xo9pi_the-monkees-daydream-believer_music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzA_qmJkmLY

If Head was never made, Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, and The Last Picture Show never would’ve been made. If you get the Criterion box set of the BBS movies, Head is mentioned as being the catalyst in Easy Rider being made. That movie kicked open the doors to some of the best movies of the 20th century. 

Jack Nicholson’s career and his courtside seats are indebted to The Monkees. He not only wrote “Head”, but produced the soundtrack. 
They had 4 back to back #1 albums and beat The Beatles on Billboard Top 40. Nesmith alone helped create MTV, a founder of country rock, and according to Garry Shandling, was the father of “reality style” comedy, which we now see in shows like “The Office” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm”. And now, you have actors who are in bands, musicians taking on acting, and regardless of what Don Kirshner did, they became a real band, played instruments live, and are as important as The Beatles in rock history (and check out who’s in the wooly cap next time you see the Beatles’ “Day in the Life” promo). 

And you never would’ve had a David Bowie… 

The Bubblegum genre is still enjoyable for me. Few social message songs. Just fun.

RIP Davey, you gave us a lot of joy.  And yes, I agree, the Monkees were more important than people realize.

even frank zappa appreciated them… the monkees wrote and played every note of “head”, which stands alone as a great record apart from the film…  kirshner scored huge with “sugar sugar”, which the monkees vehemently refused to record when he pitched it to them, because cartoons couldn’t talk back to him…

The Monkees may have been a manufactured band, but they recorded a lot of good music. RIP Davey.

“randy scouse git” was grunge before grunge was invented…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpXcSN_6K-4

The first “Boy Band”.  They actually auditioned for a TV show.  I think the real band thing was a surprise.  The biggest mistake was using their real names.  

Sad day for those of us who as kids watched them every week and couldn’t wait to see what goofy adventure they would get themselves into. 

They were pop culture at it’s most innocence. It’ll never happen again in the world. I’m lucky I lived it..

Please, the man just died. Let’s not smear him with the burden for helping generate decades of crap.  We can do that another time.

Three who auditioned for the Monkees and didn’t make the cut: Stephen Stills, Paul Williams, and Danny Hutton (of Three Dog Night).

Greatest band ever.

I watched all the episodes on Nickelodeon when I was a teen. What a fun band to watch. 

Goodbye Day Dream Believer. 

Mike Nesmith wrote some of my favorite songs of all time. Girl That I Knew Somewhere, You Just May Be the One, Papa Gene’s Blues.

simon cowell is dead?…

 Ha ha!

“You Just May Be the One” is also one of my all-time favorites.

 Totally agree with everything you’ve said. They not only became a real band but some of their psychedelic/weird inventive stuff from their album Pisces to the 69 album The Monkees Present  really holds up. Most people think of them as the first boy band or a bubble gum group.. but oh how wrong they were. Mike Nesmith is quite possibly the founder of one of the founders of that Eagles brand of country/rock that no one was doing in the mid to late 60s. One of the first bands to use  a moog synthesizer too. A hidden gem of a group that sadly still hasn’t gotten their due because  people only know them for their big hit  pure pop songs..

Do I disagree? Can’t say, but this is the most half-hearted attempt at a HOF plea I’ve ever read … the examples are weak at best, and the crux of the argument was they were the first As Seen On TV band to sell records off TV … yawn.

Fun group who deserved to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but were kept out because Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner singlehandedly gets to veto anyone he doesn’t like.

If you’re too tired to grasp the logic, get some sleep.
 

Sorry, the band was crap on a good day. At their height they were alongside Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, and countless other real musicians and songwriters. They were terrible, manufactured TV tripe. Why do you think the only half-way real musician among them, Mike Nesmith, stayed away? Hall of Fame? That too is a joke. It took until last year to get the great Laura Nyro inducted. But I guess in today’s musical climate the Monkees aren’t too bad. 

what am i doin’ hangin’ ’round?

circle sky

…

you are clueless not to recognize, if not the significance, the sheer talent of the monkees…  studio trickery is quite accepted these days, and the monkees get a bad rap for that…  the dirty little secret is that in those days of alleged band integrity, there was no shortage of studio ringers available to shore up weakness of artists…  the wrecking crew alone, hollywood’s version of the funk bros that played on several monkees hits, played on several records, including “light my fire”, “bridge over troubled water”, “good vibrations”, “california girls”, “mr tambourine man (byrds version)”, “these boots are made for walking”, “close to you” and on and on…

Soooo much coverage for Whitney, so little for Davey.  Why, are druggies that much more important.

she had some pipes, no question, but was otherwise derivative and brought nothing new to the table…  the cultural impact of the monkees (beyond the screaming girls) is without question…

 Your problem is that you define great rockers solely in terms of their songwriting.  Obviously, songwriting is important.  But singers ranging from Elvis to Whitney didn’t do it.

Very good article! Of course, the late John Stewart would also later write and perform the late 70s top five hit “Gold.” I also think The Monkees should be in the Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame!