Calling their final album
Changes
made sense for
the Monkees
.
Mike Nesmith
had just departed, leaving only
Mickey Dolenz
and
Davy Jones
to hold down the fort. The other big change was that after years of struggling to have their voices as songwriters and musicians heard, the remaining duo basically gave up and let the producers take over. The musical reins were given to legendary producer
Jeff Barry
(who had just come from a huge success with
the Archies
) and he and his cronies like
Bobby Bloom
wrote and performed the songs. Apart from one track written by
Dolenz
(the goofy country rock novelty
"Midnight Train"
),
were on hand to provide vocals only. While this could be seen as some kind of defeat and the end of
as an actual rock band,
ends up being a very good bubblegum record.
Barry
's production is light and frothy, the songs are hooky and fun, and both
Jones
perform admirably given the likely somewhat humiliating situation. There are songs that rock harder than you'd expect (
"99 Pounds,"
"Oh My My"
), very sweet ballads (the gospelly
"Tell My Love"
"You're So Good to Me"
), silly novelty songs (
"I Love You Better"
), a fun tropical-themed love song (
"Acapulco Sun"
), and even a vaudeville-y a
Boyce
&
Hart
number tacked on the end of the album (the wickedly out of place
"I Never Thought It Peculiar"
). There are even a couple songs that might make a discerning fan's homemade best-of comp, namely the achingly pretty
-sung ballad
"Ticket on a Ferry Ride"
"Do You Feel It Too, "
a heartfelt love song that shows
at his sincere best. It may not be an incredibly inspired album, but it is a lot of fun and if they had stuck together (and with
), they could have had a nice little run of albums. Sadly, though, the record tanked completely and
name was retired soon after its release. [
Rhino
's 1994 reissue of the album added three very good bonus tracks, two of which (
"Do It in the Name of Love"
"Lady Jane"
) were taken from the duo's final sessions with
(and were eventually released under
' own names on
Bell Records
in 1971. The other track (
"Time and Time Again"
) is a
co-write that was supposed to be on the record but was cut. Possibly because its hazy folk-jazz feel was too out of place. It is one of
' stronger efforts and shows that had he stayed serious about making music, he could have done some interesting things.] ~ Tim Sendra