Yeah, I've Got Two Monkees Albums on My iPod...So?

Been listening to my iPod while beading tonight. I was reminded by a post on Absolute Write a while back that there were some pretty good Monkees songs, back in the day. So I downloaded a couple of their albums from iTunes.

Now, I didn't see the Monkees when they were first on in the US, we either didn't get the channel (pre-cable days, folks and we were pretty far from LA so the antenna didn't pick up but one or two stations) or it was past my bedtime when they were on - in '66 when the show first aired I was 9.

I got to see them as re-runs broadcast on Taiwanese TV. I remember enjoying the shows, I was 11 or 12 at the time, so that might explain it. Our TV choices in English were limited over there. I think there was Gilligan's Island, too, but I'm not certain. Would that have been in re-runs in '68 & '69? The only other thing about Taiwanese TV that's notable (at least to me) is that I was in a Taiwanese soda pop commercial - true story! Maybe I'll tell it to you some day.

Anyway, I've skipped some of the songs as they came up in the shuffle - most of the Davey Jones songs are particularly treacle-y. The few that featured Michael Nesmith are as good as I remember. There were also a few that edged up to real '60s flower power music - surprising since it seemed the point of the Monkees was to play it safe for the network and their advertisers.

Hey, "I'm Gonna Buy Me a Dog" is playing right now. Is that Mickey or Pete singing? "...Zulu's? No, I usually won". Well, that was over pretty fast. Now it's Paul Simon singing "Graceland".

My playlist is all over the map. Don Henley's "Get Over It", Sting's "Fields of Gold", k.d. lang's "Bird on a Wire', Maroon 5, The Mommas and the Poppas, Fleetwood Mac, James Darren...well, he was in Deep Space 9 and I kinda like that ol' crooner music anyway - which reminds me, I need to get my Sinatra and Dino back on my iTunes.