I don't think you know me (The Monkees) (LP 4426 - 4432)

The Monkees  Live 1967 (Vinyl, Rhino Records, 1987) *** 

The Monkees  Live in Japan 1968 (Vinyl, R&B Records, ?) ****  

The Monkees  Live! Summer Tour (2CD and DVD Grey Scale Records, 2001) ****  

The Monkees  Missing Links (Vinyl, Rhino Records, 1987) ***  

The Monkees  The Monkees Greatest Hits (Vinyl, EMI Records, 1977) ****  

The Monkees  The Definitive Monkees (CD, WEA Records, 2001) *****  

The Monkees  Good Times! (CD, Rhino Records, 2016) ***  

Genre: Pop 

Places I remember: JB Hi Fi, Vinyl Countdown

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Mary Mary (Live 1967)

Gear costume: I Was There (and I'm told I had a good time) (Good Times!)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7

Active compensatory factors: The live albums are interesting, but not crucial. Live 1967 is compiled from shows in Seattle, Portland and Spokane on their 1967 United States tour. The sound is pretty good for 1967. 

The screaming girls, the zany between song banter and the deep cuts are all there. I could live without Your Auntie Grizelda, it must be said, but Mary Mary is terrific.

Live in Japan 1968 continues with the screaming Japanese girls. The Monkees zap through their hits and even find a spot for Peter Percival Patterson's Pet Pig Porky!

They sound like a sixties garage band or even punkish on both of these live albums. It's crude, but effective.

The Missing Links album has some tasty outtakes and rarities. The bulk of the material is from 1968 and the sessions that produced The Birds, the Bees & The Monkees. 

The best songs are all Mike Nesmith songs. Nine Times Blue is a gem, but the others - Of You (although not written by him) and Carlisle Wheeling are also excellent songs. Mike later re-recorded Nine Times Blue for his Magnetic South album and Carlisle Wheeling (as Conversations) for his Loose Salute album.

The two compilations - the seventies single album Greatest Hits is good - all the biggest hits are there in 11 songs, but the Definitive Monkees set has 29 songs that range from the debut album until the late eighties album Pool It! so it's a lot more representative. That means all the hits and the best album tracks are on one album.

Unfortunately, my copy is without the bonus disc of over 30 rare Monkees songs.

In many ways the singles/hits only tell one story of this seminal sixties band. You really need the albums, particularly The Monkees (the debut), Head, Pisces etc.

The final album in my collection is Good Times! released in 2016 to commemorate their 50th anniversary. It was their first album without Davy, who passed away in 2012, although the surviving threesome included Davy posthumously.

It's way better than anyone had the right to expect from some aging rock stars of the sixties. The album contains a bunch of songs that continue the joyousness of The Monkees signature pop sound. It stands as a fitting tribute to Peter Tork and Mike Nesmith who passed away in 2019 and 2021 respectively.

Micky continues to be the voice of the band - indeed in 2026 he's still touring and having just had his 81st birthday he's clearly doing it because he loves it. 

Micky captures the reunion and farewell spirit on Good Times! with the final song - I Was There (And I'm Told I Had a Good Time). As AllMusic noted - 'he looks at the past not with sad reverence but with a smile, happy that he was there and happy to be able to sing about it still, and that's the vibe of Good Times!: it was a blast to live it then and it's a blast to relive those times too'. There are plenty of other highlights on the album, but I especially love Me and Magdelana.

Late inclusion: I forgot I had the Live! Summer Tour package in with my DVDs. It's from the 20th Anniversary Reunion tour and this set was from a concert in Anaheim, California in 2001. Micky, Peter and Davy (no Mike) go through their hits with enough fun and gusto that it makes for a very pleasant nostalgic experience.

As a final note - I'm so glad I saw Micky and Mike Nesmith with my two mates when they toured New Zealand a few years ago. It was a special night that will always be there in the memory banks.

Where do they all belong? I'm still missing a few albums from this post sixties era: Changes (1970); Pool It! (1987);   Justus (1996). I'm also missing Missing Links Vol 2 and Vol 3.