Changes by The Monkees: Album Review

As I referenced in previous post of mine, The Monkees were the first band I ever got into, and to this day, they remain my favorite band of all time. The first CD I ever got was one of their “Best of” collections when I was probably 10 or 11 years old. There was a small pamphlet inside detailing the band’s history, and I remember the despair I felt reading about the eventual breaking up of the group, despite the fact that it had happened decades ago at that point. This pamphlet also contained a list of all The Monkees’ albums, which provided a complimentary visual history of the band’s disintegration, with their last album, Changes, depicting the two remaining members all alone on the cover. 

Something about that was poignant to me, and later on, I went and listened to that album, only to find myself quite disappointed by it. I was probably 15 or 16 at the time, preferring the dynamic, new wave sound of The Cars and the in-your-face, riff-y blues of The Animals to what was essentially a mish-mash of contractually obligated solo work by Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones.

Yes, Changes was more of a forced group project than a serious artistic undertaking, with both Dolenz and Jones simply clocking in and going through the motions to meet the requirements of their contracts. The two mostly worked separately, bringing in their own studio musicians and digging up old outtakes that hadn’t made it onto previous albums. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the album flopped, failing to chart initially and only scratching 152 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums when it was re-released in 1986. 

With all that being said, I ended up re-visiting the album a few years ago and...I actually kind of like it? Sure, sometimes it’s obvious that the remaining Monkees are phoning it in, but there are some good songs hidden in between that. Even if the album cover creates more of an emotional reaction than its contents, I think The Monkees’ last album (for a while, anyway) deserves some attention. 

“Oh My My” is the opener, and it was also, as far as I can tell, the only single from the album that was released in the US, sneaking onto the Billboard Hot 100 at number 98. It features bare-bones verses and a chorus that manages to toe the line between “soaring” and “restrained.” Micky Dolenz sings on this one, and he does a good job. It’s evident how well he can control his voice, and the song itself is pretty catchy. It’s not a bad way to start an album.

A bad way to continue an album, however, is with “Ticket on a Ferry Ride.” This one’s a slog, plain and simple. It feels like a Seals & Crofts song if both Seals and Crofts were woken up against their wills at 4 am and told to come up with something in 5 minutes. The instrumental is meandering and mediocre. The backing vocals get annoying very quickly, either repeating the two lines that make up 56% of the song (“I’ve got a ticket on a ferry ride, I’ve got a ticket and it hurts inside”) or letting out an uninspired “ahhh.” That 56% is heavily back-loaded, by the way. This makes the ending of the song irritating and pointless, droning on for a whole minute and a half. 

The rest of the song isn’t much better. We know that the narrator has a ticket on a ferry ride, and that they’re hurting inside. And if you forget, don’t worry, you’ll be constantly reminded of it. Despite that, however, there’s no mention of why he has to leave or what the deal is with this ferry that it’s taking him so far away, since ferries usually only cover short distances. 

Besides all that, there’s one last odd wrinkle to this song. In the beginning, Micky sings: “I wonder if she knows that I don't really want to go.” Later, this gets changed to: “I wonder if she knows that I don't really have to go.” So, not only does the narrator not want to go, but he doesn't even have to go. It seems like a lot of trouble could be prevented for him, the woman he is leaving, and us, the listeners, if he just missed that ferry.

The song is extremely dull, and the only spark of emotion to be found is the intensity of the narrator’s sadness. He’s in love with someone and seems to be absolutely miserable about the fact that he supposedly has to leave them. But, in the end, it turns out that isn’t even the case. 

”You’re so Good to Me” comes next, and it’s the first of Davy’s entries. Like “Oh My My,” it features deconstructed verses with a full chorus, and Jones adds a solid vocal performance. Also like “Oh My My,” I’d put it in the “decent” bin. It’s a short song, clocking in at 2:33, and there isn’t much substance to it. However, it’s catchy and lacks glaring plot holes, so if nothing else it's an improvement from "Ticket on a Ferry Ride."

The microphone goes back to Micky for “It’s Got to Be Love,” one of the stronger songs on the album. It features a prominent piano part that provides nice riffs and a good rhythm underneath a lyrical structure that differs a bit from the norm. This is something I always like to see, especially when it’s done well. "It's Got to Be Love" is a dynamic song, with the energy vacillating throughout, punctuated by timely syncopation and delayed backing vocals in the chorus. 

There’s an abundance of backing vocals on the album, and while they can get overused at times, I think they’re a welcome addition to this tune. 

I mentioned that “Oh My My” was the only single released in the US. It wasn’t the album’s only single, though, as the next song, “Acapulco Sun,” was released in Mexico. I can’t find any information about it, except that it was supposedly a “minor hit” there. I have just about as much to say about the song itself. It has a beach vibe and some annoying backing vocals, but there isn’t anything else notable about it. 

“99 Pounds'' kicks things up a notch, at least within the context of the album. The entire song has an early Beatles sound to it, and given the original Monkees formula consisted of Micky singing the pop songs and Davy singing the ballads, it’s nice to hear the latter on this one, where he does a good job with a style of music that he didn’t have as much experience with. “99 Pounds'' is probably the closest song on the album to The Monkees’ older material, and while it might not stack up against songs like “Tomorrow’s Gonna Be Another Day'' or “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone,” it’s still good in its own right. 

“Tell Me Love” also switches up the aforementioned formula, featuring Micky singing a ballad. I mentioned before that incessant backing vocals permeate throughout Changes, and that’s certainly the case here. In the beginning, they don’t feel out of place, although they certainly teeter on the edge of it. The problem is that the exact same “ah-ah-ah-ah” resurfaces after practically every single line. It actually doesn’t get old as fast as one might think, but it definitely gets there, eventually. The song is neither a monstrosity nor a snooze fest—I actually think it’s kind of pretty—but it isn’t anything groundbreaking, and thanks to those backing vocals, it becomes stale after a while. 

Davy is back to sing “Do You Feel It Too,” which feels much more like a “Davy song” than “99 Pounds.” It’s bouncy, bubbly, and very much a product of its time (featuring the line: “life is like a cartoon movie, being with you makes it groovy”). The instrumental is a bit jumbled, sounding like a piano and guitar were put through a blender together. That’s not to say it’s bad, though. In fact, it’s one of my favorite songs on the album. That piano/guitar mash-up churns out a lot of pleasant riffs, especially between the lines of the chorus. A simple yet enjoyable bass solo also makes a brief appearance. I’m not sure how much of an “addition by subtraction” effect the lack of backing vocals provides, but given what we got on “Ticket on a Ferry Ride” and “Tell Me Love,” you won’t find me complaining. 

“I Love You Better” is similar to “Tell Me Love” in that the backing vocals, though repetitive, don’t become irritating as quickly as might be expected. The chorus is similar. Despite consisting only of Micky singing “I, I, I love you better” over and over, it isn’t that bad. The issue with this song lies in the verses. The entire premise of the song is that the narrator has dated a wide variety of women, but has come to the conclusion that they like the subject of the song the most. 

Okay. 

But who are these other people, you might ask? Well, there’s the belly dancer, with whom the narrator didn’t stand a chance, the gospel singer who tried to wrap him around her finger, a history teacher who he was unable to get through to, and possibly a one “Miss November,” whoever that’s supposed to be.

...what? 

In my review of ABBA’s album, Voyage, I complained about the arbitrary nature of the ending to their song “Little Things.” “I Love You Better” is like that, except it goes on for the whole song. The characters are random, the reasons things didn’t work out seem forced in just to make everything rhyme, and even after all that, the songwriters wanted to squeeze one more verse out of the song, but couldn’t be bothered to come up with a final meaningless character and ridiculous reason, so they went with: “there were some that I can’t remember, I think I went with Miss November.” 

This is the song that, unfortunately, embodies the project that Changes was supposed to be. It’s a lazy, forced piece that focuses the minimal amount of effort allocated to it into sounding just catchy enough to justify its existence. There, at least, it succeeds. Musically, it’s not the worst thing in the world, and if the lyrics were just Micky and Davy singing gibberish, the final product would be better than what we’re left with. Those lyrics though...ouch. 

I get it's supposed to be a silly song, but there's a difference between silly and arbitrarily pointless. "I'm Gonna Buy Me A Dog" is a ridiculous Monkees song, but it actually makes sense. Slapping the "silly song" lipstick on a nonsensical pig is one of my biggest pet peeves, so I realize I'm biased, but it just doesn't work at all in my eyes.

Between the highs and the lows of the album, there is a glut of mediocre songs, usually with a few off-putting moments contained within them. I think that’s the best way to summarize “All Alone in the Dark.” It’s nothing to write home about, and the only things that really caught my attention were interspersed bouts of Micky singing in a strange falsetto, some ad-libbed nonsense, and a kazoo solo. The Monkees had their fair share of goofy songs where things like this wouldn’t sound as jarring, but “All Alone in the Dark” appears to be going for a “Harvest Moon” type of vibe, at least based on the lyrics. I get everyone probably had a “one foot out the door” mindset at this point, but you don’t just accidentally drop a kazoo solo into a song. That’s a conscious decision. I assume there are situations where it could work, but this isn’t one of them. 

Next up is “Midnight Train,” which could best be summed up as a Micky Dolenz train song. In past Monkees songs like “Goin’ Down” and “No Time,” Micky showcased his ability to sing quickly. He does that here, and he does it well. In this case, he does it within the context of the fairly standard “you treated me badly, so I’m leaving” concept, with the added theme of “...on a train” tacked on. The chugging harmonica, frantic drums, and quick-picked banjo all work, and I don’t have anything bad to say about “Midnight Train.” I don’t have too much praise to heap on it either, though. It is what it is. 

The original end to Changes was “I Never Thought It Peculiar.” While there were some bonus tracks and The Monkees released more material later on, if this was their last song ever, I’d be okay with it, given the state of the band at that point. Of course, a song with all four Monkees in their style would have been better, but this campy, Broadway-like Davy Jones song is somehow my favorite on the entire album, and even independently, I like it quite a bit. Sure, it has a cheesy Herman’s Hermits sound to it, but I think that singing these more upbeat songs is an underrated aspect of Jones’ skill set because he does it really well.

The song has an uncomplicated, conventional plot, but it’s coherent, plucky, and confident enough to be enjoyable. The instrumental is by far the most interesting on this entire album, featuring strings, horns, signature changes, and an electric guitar solo that should feel out of place, but ends up actually working. 

As far as the bonus tracks, “Time and Time Again” is monotonous and rambling, “Do It in the Name of Love” has both Dolenz and Jones singing, which is welcome. It feels fractured, however, and I’d give it the “mediocre” label the majority of this album has. I don’t generally like songs that use names in them, as they can feel overly-specific and thus unrelatable. “Lady Jane” is one of these songs, even though the name only comes at the very end. It’s nice to hear Davy and Micky trading verses, as it highlights the differences in their vocal toolboxes. There’s also a catchy riff, but this repeats over and over and soon loses its appeal. I could see people without my hang ups in regards to names and repetition liking the song, though.

All in all, I would call Changes a pretty standard album. It has a few highs, a few lows, and a lot in the middle. There are certainly times when the fact that this album was a contractual obligation becomes glaringly obvious, and it's unfortunate that this Monkees record is, in actuality, two of the original four Monkees each doing their own thing and tossing their results onto one album. That being said, there are some great songs here, and given what it was, I’d say Changes exceeds expectations.