0349. The Monkees
Headquarters

So, the Monkees... A pop band construct aimed at cashing in on Beatlemania the quartet didn't know each other till the casting for the TV show was done. Also, in the show and subsequent tours they got assigned instruments and thus didn't necessarily get the one they played the best.

Headquarters was their third album and the first where the Monk's themselves wrote the majority of songs and I got to say that their self-penned tracks are better than the ones written by the TV-studio's people.

There's a wide net thrown from regular sixties' girl-wooing pop in Forget That Girl to Chuck Berry-esque R&B in No Time and the nonsense of Zilch (which all of you hip hop historians out there might recognize as the track Del Tha Funkee Homosapien borrowed Mistadobalina from). There's a couple of counter-culture songs too, most notably the closing track Randy Scouse Git (which also references the Fab Four).

The big blunder with the album wasn't their fault though, cuse how could they know that Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band would be released the week after Headquarters. The Monkees' place at the number one spot didn't stand a chance.
But they still sold pretty well, and the bands were on good terms, so no harm, no foul.