Search - Monkees :: Works

A Big Barrell Full Of Monkees At A Small Price

Richard J. Silverberg | Kew Gardens, New York USA | 12/01/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This 3 c.d. set originates from England. It has 68 songs. The first 64 were originally released between 1966 -1970. Songs 65 and 66 (Angel Band and Little Red Rider) are from the Missing Links releases. Songs 67 and 68 are The Monkees reunion singles from the 1980's ( That Was Then... and Heart And Soul.



There's at least a half dozen tracks from each of the Monkees original 9 albums with the exception of Head. Only "As We Go Along" is omitted from the Head soundtrack album.



There are a couple of rarities among the tracks: "Daily Nightly" does not have Micky's synthesizer overdub and "Hold On Girl" is not the originally released version from "More Of The Monkees". The latter song is from The Missing Links series.



Also, included are most of The Monkees single releases from the 1960's which did not appear on the group's original 9 albums: "A Little Bit Me...", "Girl I Knew Somewhere", "D.W. Washburn" and a mono extended version of "Goin Down".



The packaging is rudimentary: There's only an insert with the songwriters and recording year of each song. The insert only has one picture of The Group. The sonics of the 3 compact discs are good not great. For example, there's still that horrible sound on "Acapulco Sun" and "Saturday's Child" and "Sometime In The Morning" do not sound like studio master tape versions. Also, as compared to other Monkee Compact disks, there seems to be a moderate amount of hissing on individual tracks.



Overall "The Works" is a fine inexpensive compilation. Of Course, Monkee fans can and will debate some of the song selections. Some of my personal favorites that are not presented here are: "Love Is Only Sleeping", "While I Cried", "Zor And Zam" and "You And I""