Rating: - Head Stands High In Monkees Catalog
Their fight with Don Kirshner for control of their own destiny was over; their show failed to garner a third season renewal; and their 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee TV variety show bombed; fame is fleeting - in less than two years this made-for-TV band did the impossible, ascending the heights of the pop machine and rivaled even The Beatles in popularity, then fell from grace after guitarist Mike Nesmith and bassist/keyboardist Peter Tork came out that the band had been "faking" it on the records -- but that changed with Headquarters. Still, the damage was done and the group, already rife with four individual ego problems (particularly Nesmith), decided that the best thing to do was to give TV the finger and all the critics as well -- they managed to pull together as a unit, and with the help of a few friends (including Jack Nicholson!) they created their most ambitious project, the film HEAD. The film was a critical disaster and their teenybopper fans hated it, but decades later the film -- and soundtrack album -- are considered the band's swansong to a degree, as it was truly a creative, artistic statement that did indeed rival anything anyone else was doing at the time in terms of quality, entertainment value and artistry. The film and the album have a very stream-of-consciousness feel and in-between bizarre vignettes of Mike and Micky taking bets on whether a girl will actually jump off a rooftop and plunge to her death and Frank Zappa walking around doling out critical analysis with a talking cow, you get snippets of self-mocking cleverness, such as Peter worrying about a scene where he has to hit a woman, and how it will effect his image as a peace-nik; Davy getting his "million dollar face" smashed and bloodied by boxer Sonny Liston; Mike's creepy horror at being left alone in their flat (the same one from the TV show) by the others (whom he thinks are playing a prank on him) and threatening outloud, "You think they call us plastic now baby, well wait till I tell em how we do it!" Then later on, his cynical response to a surprise party; and Micky's whacked-out desert battle with a Coke machine. Then you get the most telling moment of all, when all the film's characters chase the band to a bridge, where they commit suicide.
As for the music - the only complaint I have is that there are only 6 songs here. It would have been cool if they could have padded out the rest of the album with some of the many outtakes found now on the three Missing Links collections. Still, its interesting to hear scenes from the film cut and pasted in-between each track: the theme song, Porpoise Song, is haunting (the extended version with coda section is even moreso) and stands as one of the group's best ever (even finding its way into the film Vanilla Sky); Davy's Broadway rocker Daddy's Song actually works here, and was, interestingly enough, originally going to be a Mike song (heard as a bonus track); speaking of Mike, he turns in a great rocker Circle Sky. The live version from the film is here as well as a bonus track; and Peter, who was on the verge of quitting the band, turns in his best efforts with Do I Have To Do This All Over Again (featuring a blistering lead guitar) and Can You Dig It? (sung to great effect by Micky Dolenz); and Dolenz turns in a fine performance of the ballad As We Go Along. All in all, if you can handle the brevity, this album is very much worth owning, as well as the film.