The Monkees - Headquarters

Celebrate The Monkees' 55th Anniversary of their masterwork "Headquarters" in mono!

First time limited edition translucent red vinyl

Produced by Chip Douglas

Mastered by Friday Music's Joe Reagoso from the Colgems Records mono tapes!

The 1967 No. 1 album that opened the doors into the summer of love!

Features "You May Just Be The One," "Shades Of Grey," "For Pete's Sake," "You Told Me" and more!

The Monkees: Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork

In 1967 after two number one albums, a plethora of hit singles and a smash television show, The Monkees were on top and knew they each had true musical talents not championed by their label executives.

Michael Nesmith spearheaded a change in direction before sessions began on their legendary Headquarters album. This action resulted in the much covered dissolution with music mogul Don Kirshner, and Chip Douglas (The Turtles) was now recruited by Nesmith to work with the band.

In rapid succession, things began to fall into place in February 1967. With initial tracks like country rocker "Sunny Girlfriend" and the acid rock imagery of "Mr. Webster," the band set the stage for what would become one of the most loved works in their catalog and one of the finest rock albums of a generation.

A definite album opener, "You Told Me" begins their masterpiece Headquarters. The track features a brilliant 12 string guitar and the rockin' vocals of Nesmith, as Tork's incredible banjo fills the track alongside Dolenz's driving drum work. With Jones' percussion and all three fine-tuning their background vocals with Nesmith, it became the very first song that many of us remember as we opened up our sealed copies back in the summer of '67.Not straying too far from previous success, the band scored a few more of Boyce and Hart compositions like Micky Dolenz's folk rock ballad "I'll Spend My Life With You." The solid steel guitar work of Mike Nesmith would go on to become a precursor to his groundbreaking Nashville sessions in the late sixties and early seventies.

Davy Jones has several watershed moments here with both "Forget That Girl" and "Early Morning Blues and Greens." "Forget That Girl" employs a unique English northern soul vibe, while the latter shares a wonderful Peter Tork background vocal and keyboard making it one of the more psychedelic infused and standout tracks on the LP.

Michael Nesmith's handiwork is evident on the entire album. "You May Just Be The One" rocks the album into full gear and makes it one of his definitive landmark tracks.

Headquarters also brought rightful acclaim to Peter Tork, as his first recorded Monkees' song "For Pete's Sake" soon became a prolific standard. The song transcended with the times and became one of the more insightful tunes from the quartet. "For Pete's Sake" also replaced the familiar Monkees Theme at the end of season two, giving the song more TV exposure over the years.

Peter also shares a brilliant vocal duet with Davy on the reflective "Shades Of Gray", which unfortunately has a different meaning these days to a lot of us since the untimely passing of Davy Jones, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith.

And as always, you can count on Micky Dolenz to deliver — whether it's his hard rocking vocals of "No Time" or "For Pete's Sake" or his prog-rock feel on "Mr. Webster." The album was definitely a great showcase for the Micky. Albeit no singles were released from the album stateside, his own composition "Randy Scouse Git" closes out the album with a furor not heard on previous efforts and became one of his finest tunes ever in The Monkees catalog.

The Monkees' Headquarters was one of four albums of The Monkees that topped the charts in 1967. This fact alone is enough to warrant the importance of this album in musical history. But there are other amazing feats that "Headquarters" managed to deliver to millions of fans on its eventful release back in May of 1967. The album hit the stores before "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" by The Beatles. Friendly rivals as they were, "Headquarters" rose to number one and also opened the door to "The Summer of Love."

It remained in the upper rung of the retail charts until their fourth platter "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd." (now on Friday Music vinyl) became a number one album to close out the year. Wow!

Most notably, Headquarters showed the real world the transition of four talented guys on a hit TV show evolving into a self-produced, self-reliant and one of the most loved bands in musical history.

 

 

1. You Told Me

2. I'll Spend My Life With You

3. Forget That Girl

4. Band 6

5. You Just May Be The One

6. Shades Of Gray

7. I Can't Get Her Off My Mind

8. For Pete's Sake

9. Mr. Webster

10. Sunny Girlfriend

11. Zilch

12. No Time

13. Early Morning Blues And Greens

14. Randy Scouse Git

Be the first to write a review for this item OR just rate it