THE MONKEES - JUSTUS @ 25

 

October 15th marks the 25th anniversary of the release of The Monkees 1996 reunion album, Justus. It was instigated as a way to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the debut of the group’s TV series, which aired for the first time on September 12th, 1966. It would be the first time all four members would record together since 1968, and the last time before Davy’s passing in 2012.

Like clockwork, The Monkees seemed to try some sort of reunion album every ten years. In 1976, the Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart album came together, though not officially under The Monkees banner due to the name being in legal limbo at the time. It was an album that was, overall, quite successful artistically, but failed to make much of an impact commercially. In 1987, on the heels of a hit single, That Was Then, This Is Now, which was spurred on by a revival of the TV show thanks to an MTV marathon in 1986, Micky, Davy & Peter put together the Pool It album, which was pretty much savaged by critics and is considered the group’s all time worst album by many. The next cycle brought them together in the summer of 1996 to begin work on Justus.

This time around, it was Mike who got the ball rolling. After playing his then fiancé, Victoria Kennedy, some tracks from the Head soundtrack, her enthusiastic response got him to organize a jam session with Micky on drums, Pete on bass and himself on guitar. The session went so well that they called in Davy to complete the group and began working with label Rhino to put together a reunion album. For this project, the group wanted to go back to one of the best times of their early career, when they’d broken free from the shackles of being a “fake” TV band and got control of their music to record their third album, Headquarters. They wanted to recreate that magic of it being only the four of them at the helm and they even decided to up the ante by writing all the songs themselves and producing the album on their own. As the label says on the tin, it was to be JUST them.

It was all set about with the best of intentions and approached with the utmost sincerity, but when it came to what was delivered, something about the sum of the parts didn’t end up adding up quite to what it should have been. For one thing, the primary influence of the era was the zeitgeist of the “grunge” movement, which drove the group to attempt to update their sound to that contemporary standard and the truth was that it wasn’t the best fit when they strayed into that territory. Anger and cynicism weren’t a good disposition for a group who were so strongly associated with fun and games. Not that they hadn’t offered up some cynical songs before. Pleasant Valley Sunday was a cutting commentary on suburban conformity, but it was wrapped in bubblegum pop sweetness to make its attack one of stealth rather than a full frontal assault.

The strength of the songwriting wasn’t quite up to par either. Though they’d all been able to deliver classic songs in the past, they didn’t seem to come up to scratch this time around. It’s not that the album is necessarily “bad”, but being “middling” is always a pretty weak form of praise. Many found the lack of Nesmith’s more country-rock influence and lead vocals another disappointment. Some better songs did brighten things up to a degree, particularly Davy’s pieces as they skewed towards a softer pop sound, but even at their best, the production still sounds dated today, especially when the songs try to push into edgier hard rock. The hollow sound of the vocals is particularly jarring on tracks like Regional Girl. It’s got a thin, brittle tone to it that doesn’t hold up to contemporary listening and begs for a modern remix to try to address the gutless feel that pervades the production.

Critically and commercially, the album failed to garner a lot of success or praise and lackluster reactions put a damper on the sense of achievement that should have been present for such a momentous reunion. The group did also manage to produce an hour long TV special in February of 1997 to help promote the album, but that too suffered from the same kind of unsatisfying results. Even with Mike, who’d pioneered the fusion of music and narrative with projects like his award winning Elephant Parts video, shepherding the script and handling the directing, somehow it didn't add up to what it should have. It all, on paper, should have been a marvelous rebirth for the group, but somehow the spirit and timing simply didn’t seem to jive.

It wouldn’t be until 2016’s 50th anniversary reunion album, Good Times, 20 years later, that all the pieces would fall into place to create an album which truly reignited the group in the right way. It’s an album that manages to bring their sound into the present without losing the essence of what made them so appealing in the past. Whereas Justus tried to bring them into a contemporary landscape where they didn’t seem to comfortably fit, Good Times manifested in the present without feeling like it needed to conform to the times to let The Monkees be what they were meant to be, a rebelliously fun escape from the traumas of the modern world. Justus, in the end, was an admirable and bold effort that was, sadly, not yet ready to bring the group to where they’d eventually end up in these late years of their career, but they would get there when the time was right.