Colgems 102
Music supervision: Don Kirshner
Track listing: She / When Love Comes Knockin’ (At Your Door) / Mary, Mary / Hold on Girl / Your Auntie Grizelda / (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone / Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow) / The Kind of Girl I Could Love / The Day We Fall in Love / Sometime in the Morning / Laugh / I’m a Believer
February 11, 1967
18 weeks
Not only was The Monkees sitcom inspired by the Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night, but the group’s success on the charts was also starting to resemble the Fab Four’s, as The Monkees was knocked from the summit of the Top LP’s chart by its follow-up. The Beatles experienced a similar phenomenon when Meet The Beatles! was displaced by The Beatles’ Second Album. Most impressively, however, the Monkees first two albums held the top position for a total of 31 weeks, almost twice as long as their British models, whose first two chart-toppers occupied the Number One spot for 16 weeks.
“Comparing the Monkees to the Beatles was a bit like comparing William Shatner to Neil Armstrong,” says Monkees drummer Micky Dolenz. “To compare us to the Beatles was like comparing apples to oranges. When John Lennon was asked about it, he said, ‘I like the Monkees. I like the Marx Brothers.’ That was the closest thing to the truth. The Monkees were more like a Marx Brothers musical than the Beatles.”
With Colgems president Don Kirshner frequently bringing in tunes from his songwriters, the Monkees soon found themselves with a backlog of material. “By the time the first album was recorded, there was enough material to do three albums,” says Dolenz. “Then, when we started selling all of those albums, everybody wanted in on the act.”
In fact, on the liner notes, Kirshner made a point to list the famous songwriters, such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King , Neil Sedaka, and Carole Bayer, before he wrote about the Monkees’ talents. The reliance on outside songwriters was beginning to frustrate Monkee Mike Nesmith, who was a songwriting talent in his own right. As had been the case on the group’s first album, Nesmith was allowed two writing and producing on More of the Monkees, but the hits continued to come from outside writers.
“I’m a Believer,” penned by Neil Diamond, was released as a single in December of 1966. By the end of the year, the song became the Monkees’ second Number One single. Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart’s “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone,” the B-side, also charted, peaking at number 20, and paving the way for More of the Monkees. Both Âtracks were included on the album, creÂating a pent-up demand for the new Monkees’ long-player.
More of the Monkees entered the chart at number 122 on February 4, 1967. A week later, it jumped all the way to the top, displacing The Monkes and giving the group its second Number One album. With the one-two punch The Monkees and More of the Monkees the Prefab Four dominated the top spot the album chart from November 12 1966, through June 17, 1967.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of February 11, 1967
1. More of the Monkees, The Monkees
2. The Monkees, The Monkees
3. S.R.O., Herb Albert & the Tijuana Brass
4. Dr. Zhivago, Soundtrack
5. The Temptations Greatest Hits, The Temptations