POP-A-LOOZA: The Monkees' GOOD TIMES! (with more links than a barrel of...y'know)

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares a post from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. This week's shared post reprises my review of Good Times!, the fabulous 2016 album by The Monkees.

For the most part, I do not recall the year 2016 with any fondness. We have to say goodbye to a lot of our heroes every year, but there was something about the Grim Reaper's overzealous activity in 2016 that made the year seem even crueler than other years. The death of David Bowie in January prompted me to start a blog; the death of Prince in June made me declare, "2016 is fired." And still that damned Grim Reaper kept a-marchin', and then an Electoral College disaster in November inflicted a national disgrace that will damage us for decades. No, I'm not fond of 2016 at all.

But Good Times! would have been a highlight in any year, even one less miserable than '16. The album pleased me so much that I knew I had to review it.



I wrote a large number of reviews during the twenty-year period I freelanced for Goldmine magazine, 1986-2006 (including reviews of The Monkees' catalog reissues, and of their 1996 reunion album Justus), plus a few reviews for The Syracuse New Times, among others. Over time, I became disinterested in writing reviews, and I stopped doing them even before I finished my freelancing stint with Goldmine. Honestly, I had no intention of ever writing another review. My enthusiasm for Good Times! was far greater than my resistance to the prospect of writing one more review. Good times.

The euphoria surrounding Good Times! also drove me to write separate pieces about each of the three digital singles that preceded its release: "She Makes Me Laugh," "You Bring The Summer," and "Me & Magdalena." I wrote about Canadian radio previewing the album. After I posted my Good Times! review, I wrote a supplemental piece about its bonus tracks. We dedicated the 5/29/2016 This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio to The Monkees and Good Times!, and I re-posted the playlist from our 3/4/2012 Davy Jones memorial show.

This was still not enough. I wanted more of The Monkees. At the end of August, as I thought about how Good Times! fit in The Monkees' overall recorded legacy, I began a four-part series imagining four-, three-, two-, and single-disc Monkees career retrospectives in the wake of Good Times!: Rows Of Houses That Are All The Same, Only True In Fairy Tales, Walking Down The Street, and Hall Of Fame. I became so convinced that The Monkees were finally going to receive their just due that I wrote an imaginary speech celebrating their induction into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. That, uh, didn't happen, so I expressed my disappointment in the chuckleheads in charge of the Hall.

In between, This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio commemorated the 50th anniversary of the debut of The Monkees TV series with 50 Years Of The Monkees. Shortly after that, when Michael Nesmith joined Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork for what was then widely presumed (incorrectly) to be his last-ever in-concert appearance as a Monkee, I offered this coda:

This past Monday was the 50th anniversary of The Monkees TV series, which debuted on NBC at 7:30 (6:30 Central) on September 12th, 1966. The series ran for just two seasons. The made-for-TV rock 'n' roll group didn't merely blur the line between fantasy and fact--they variously scuffed it, defaced it, ignored it, piddled on it, and said rude things about it. They made records. They did concert tours. They made a movie. They made a TV special. They broke up. They reunited. They transcended any reasonable expectation of what they could or couldn't be. In the words of Michael Nesmith, "We're The Monkees. That's all we've ever had to be."



In the time passed since this review was written four years ago, we lost Peter Tork in 2019, and producer Adam Schlesinger this year. Damn you, Grim Reaper. Sometimes 2020 reminds me of 2016, though I'm at least hoping for a better November this time around. Amidst this year's pandemic misery and uncertain future, The Monkees gave us a splendid new live album, The Mike & Micky Show. Good times are good things, especially in the bleakest years.

And The Monkees were the best thing about 2016. My review of their 2016 album Good Times! is this week's Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.



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