Were the Monkees good or were they just a bootleg Beatles?

Better than the beatles

they're shit

>>70665015
>was the Porpoise Song good?
>was Last Train to Clarksville good?
>was (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone good?
>was Pleasant Valley Sunday good?
The answer is of course yes

yes and no

musically Monkees were as close to the cutting edge as any corporate product could be - visually in terms of doing TV they were truly cutting edge

they were very good for the time and by the second season they were rebelling quite a bit on their TV show

musically they were less original, but due to the unique circumstances the Monkees managed to be a great slice of life of naive musically talented people growing up to understand the world and develop their own view of it

On music recordings, The Monkees might have lagged behind The Beatles, but The Monkees movie Head puts the great Beatles movies to shame.

There is a lot of cultural value in Monkees being a manufactured band - they did become self-aware quite quickly and the later Monkees output is more culturally aware than the Beatles'.

They were a great typical 60's band, but not as good as the Beatles.
However, The Monkees were better at showing naive teenagers growing up in public while remaining opinionated young people.

Banana bunch were top

>>70665015
Their early hits were top-tier psych pop and they proved themselves to be good pop songwriters later on.

>>70665015
They were fucking atrocious at the start but turned into a somewhat decent baroque pop outfit by the late 60s.

Weirdly their best album actually came out in 2016.

>>70665229

what would you define as later out for the Monkees?

imo Birds Bees was very good

>>70665945

I thin the later period starts with Headquarters - by that time the visible faces were rebelling and wanting to be themselves

Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. and Head are truly great albums and if you care about commercialization of music - Monkees movie Head is essential watching, it's like a totally aware version of the 60's Beatles movies - essential watching for anyone interested in that boundary between manufactured star and real person - I don't see such a cool movie on the topic ever done again

The Monkees were great!
Their TV show was great and their music rocked!

>>70665096
The version of The Porpoise Song that was used in the film is much better than what was released on the soundtrack to Head. Great song though. One of my favorites. Actually your whole list of songs are GOAT!

Speaking of the tv show, it still blows my mind that Tim Buckley was on the last episode
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMTEtDBHGY4