Dang.

This is going to sound weird, maybe, but I am a huge Monkees fan. I don't care about the Monkeemania or any of that stuff, I really like their music. I have all their albums and listen to them regularly. I discovered them during an MTV retrospective years after they had broken up and was fascinated by their voices.

They could have just been the boy band of their day. That was what they were supposed to be, a fake Beatles.  Instead, they fought for and won the right to  play, produce and sing music they liked and music they created. All four turned out to be fine songwriters…Michael Nesmith was the most acclaimed, but all four wrote quality material over the years.  Their middle era albums in particular deserve a serious critical second look, many of them stand up quite nicely against even the best groups of that era. Excellent songs, quality vocals, and top notch production.  That they fizzled out due to in-fighting and other pressures is sad, because many people only know them for their radio hits and their television show.

People may not have seen HEAD, the psychedelic film they produced with Jack Nicholson, that skewered themselves mercilessly, or heard the very powerful soundtrack, or some of the deeper cuts that showed a remarkable well of creativity and talent. The tv producers wanted some adorable guys to pretend to be musicians. What they ended up with was a thousand times more interesting.

Davy Jones was the Monkee who wanted the others to get along, who was perfectly happy playing a role as a pretend musician. But like Nesmith and Dolenz, he had an outstanding, memorable voice that helped define pop music of the day. When called upon, he could deliver an outstanding vocal performance, and wrote some of the group's most underrated material.  In a band not given enough credit for their abilities, he was the guy who people pointed at as the worst example, despite all his talent and accomplishments. Listening to the albums where the Monkees took control of their music, Davy goes from the brit teenybop heartthrob to a legitimate songwriter and stylist, and it's lovely to hear.

TMZ is reporting that Davy Jones died today as a result of a heart attack at age 66. I find this terribly, terribly sad, that he didn't live to get the full critical respect they certainly deserve and hopefully will achieve.  A great voice, a talented songwriter.

Frankly, this just sucks.

Here's a video I hope you will watch, even if you aren't a Monkees fan. It's a live, no-sync vocal performance by the band, that seems appropriately bittersweet and is my favorite video of these talented guys when they were still together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_hlYgCNFZc