The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees

About

The Bird, the Bees & the Monkees is the fifth studio album by the American pop rock band the Monkee, released in 1968 by Colgems Record. It was the first album released after the cancellation of their TV show and subsequently was their first not to reach No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200, peaking at No. 3, and their first not to chart in the UK, with their four previous efforts all having reached the top ten. The album has sold over a million copies While 1968 presented several misfortunes for the band (their eponymous television series was canceled; their first motion picture project, Head, failed at the box office; and, in December, Peter Tork left the group), The Bird, The Bees & The Monkees proved to be another successful album, yielding the group's sixth million-selling single in "Valleri" and yet another No. 1 in "Daydream Believer", written by former Kingston Trio member John Stewart. "Tapioca Tundra", an experimental piece of poetry put to music by Nesmith, charted well as the B-side to "Valleri" and reached No. 34. After gaining complete artistic control over their musical direction and being allowed to play instruments on their own records in early 1967, the success of that year's Headquarters and Pisce, Aquariu, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. began to somewhat rebuff the critics who viewed the Monkees as a band of talentless individuals who were simply lucky enough to gain recognition through their "manufactured" origin. After the Pisces album, however, the desire and focus to remain as a complete band unit in the studio evaporated, and each individual band member began to produce his own sessions with his own selected studio musician, often at entirely different studios around the Los Angeles area. According to Chip Dougla, producer of the Monkees' previous two album, "Peter kind of drifted away first, and then everybody did. Everyone wanted to do their own songs and produce them the way they wanted to hear them." An agreement was made to label all finished efforts as "Produced by the Monkees" but, in reality, beyond a few exceptions the recordings featured on The Bird, The Bees & The Monkees reverted to the recording process of the first two albums (fewer group dynamics), except now each band member was fully in charge of the session. Douglas fully expected to continue as the band's representative in the studio, but found the individual Monkees more interested in exploring their diverse musical backgrounds with their own friends and associates rather than relying on him as the central figure. "I was ready to do that Boyce & Hart song 'P.O. Box 9847' – it sort of had that 'Paperback Writer' feel on the demo. We passed on it for Pisce, and I began to think, 'Well, we should do that one now.' Then somebody said, 'Chip, we're not working with you anymore; we're gonna do our own thing.'" While being credited as the producer, in reality the Monkees were assisted in the studio by Colgems' president, and head of Screen Gems-Columbia Publishing, Lester Sill, jazz musician and arranger Shorty Roger, or future manager and later MCA vice president Brendan Cahill. "At that point their contract read that they were to be credited as producers on any product of theirs that came out", Rogers recall. "Brendan Cahill and I really did all the studio work and production with Lester Sill. When we finished the album, Lester said, 'We'll put you down as producers', but The Monkees didn't want it, so that went by the wayside." Davy Jones' Broadway rock, Michael Nesmith's country and western leanings and psychedelic experiment, and the rock and soul of Micky Dolenz made for a diverse album. Several of Peter Tork's compositions were considered for release on Birds; however, they were all rejected (for reasons unknown). Aside from playing piano on "Daydream Believer", he did not participate in the making of the record at all. Veteran Monkees tunesmiths Boyce and Hart returned to the fold to contribute the psychedelic "P.O. Box 9847", as well as a new version of "Valleri". .

via Last.fm

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