#0085: The Monkees - Headquarters [*]

I don't know how The Monkees were formed. I seem to remember hearing somewhere they fashioned by the industry rather than being discovered by it. The Spice Girls of the 60s.  Perhaps. I haven't checked.

I remember the theme tune and those 2 Believers: Daydream and Indefinite Article. I shouldn't be surprised they ran out of ideas so quickly. 

I loved the TV show, and of course the theme, but I was never inspired to buy an album off the back of that. Good thing too. At that age this insipid piece of aural excrement would have soiled my taste for more musically worthy fair like the Zeppelin, Who, Slade, Queen and Bowie my older brother was giving me the benefit of in my listening infancy.

You Told Me is a pretty good song I suppose and the following two hold their own pretty well as long as you don't pay attention to the lyrics, whose tone smacks of that adolescent whining only the whiniest of adolescents can enjoy.

But then the album begins a descent from barely average toward total sonic sewage at the sort of gradient usually only seen on cliff edges.

For Pete's Sake could've been so much better if they'd got a session guitarist instead of the string buzzing twat embarrassing himself on this.  Throughout the drummer clearly can't keep time without out the bass player.  J K Simmons would've eaten this guy for breakfast and spat out the sticks.

Zilch is trying so hard to be psychedelic and they come off like a bunch of accountants trying to prove they're a fun bunch of people.  Apologies to the accountants but you get a lot of stick for being boring and some of you tend to over compensate.

Littered with attempts at different styles, peppered with nods to intricacies executed well by other bands, Headquarters sounds like they're trying to prove one thing but sadly confirm the other.

I am not a believer anymore.