It’s an easy mistake to make, to judge The Monkees by their hit singles without ever diving any deeper. After all, it’s not like they were a real band driven to make artistic statements over the course of an LP. But easy or not, it’s a mistake. In fact, the Monkees albums are a virtual treasure trove of potential hits; with a band constructed to be a hit machine, virtually all of the songs that were given to them were viewed as potential singles, and the songs written by the band members were their attempts to break the stranglehold the producers held over their product.

It’s well known that the Monkees were not an organic musical entity. In the Monkees’ musical suicide note, the elegiac “Porpoise Song” by Carole King, Mickey Dolenz’s beautiful tenor describes the band as “a face/a voice/an overdub has no choice/and it cannot rejoice.” For their second album, the appropriately named More of the Monkees, the band was not even aware that the album had been released until they saw it in a record store. On their third album, Headquarters, the Monkees seized creative control. They chose the songs and they played all the instruments on the album. It was a very good album, with several songs written by various band members. From an instrumental perspective nobody will ever mistake it for a Mahavishnu Orchestra album, but the songs were well-served by their arrangements. The group was rightfully proud of the album which shot to number one for a week or so before the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and turned Headquarters into a footnote.

Wisely, the pre-Fab Four decided to split the difference with their next album. They played most of the typical rock instruments with the exception of bass and drums, but left the majority to studio musicians. They also relied on professional songwriters more than they had on the previous album. The result was their best, and only truly cohesive, album, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd. For thirteen songs (well, twelve songs and Peter’s plosive palaver “Peter Percival Patterson’s Pet Pig Porky”), the Monkees sing their usual assortment of love songs, but mixed in are odes to a traveling salesman who seems to be selling something quite illegal (“Salesman”), an oblique lyric about the Sunset Strip riots set to a way-ahead-of-its-time Moog synthesizer backing (“Daily Nightly”), and not one, but two(!) not-particularly-subtle songs about using and losing an underage groupie (“Cuddly Toy”, “Star Collector”).

Elsewhere on the album the songs range from Davy Jones’s “Hard to Believe,” a slice of Dionne Warwick-style pop, to “What Am I Doing Hangin’ ‘Round?”, one of the earliest examples of what would later be known as country rock, to “She Hangs Out,” a tough mid-tempo rocker sung convincingly by Jones, to the soft-rock stylings of “Don’t Call On Me.” Of particular note are the Nesmith-sung “The Door Into Summer” and “Love Is Only Sleeping,” a vaguely psychedelic song that has aged extremely well, and “Words” which features an impassioned vocal from Dolenz and a driving bass line courtesy of the album’s producer Chip Douglas.

Mixed in with all this is the ultimate Monkees track, the withering look at suburbia’s status symbol culture, “Pleasant Valley Sunday.” Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and sung beautifully by Mickey Dolenz (was there ever a more sheerly listenable singer?), this is the definitive Monkees song, an insanely catchy ear worm that casts a cynical eye on the band’s own audience.

The year 1967 was an incredible one for rock music, largely considered one of the best. The Beatles released their “Strawberry Fields Forever”/”Penny Lane” single along with Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour. The Doors released their first two albums, and Jimi Hendrix changed the world for guitar players everywhere with Are You Experienced? and Axis: Bold As Love. Jefferson Airplane hit big with Surrealistic Pillow. Bob Dylan laid the cornerstone of Americana music with John Wesley Harding.

It would be silly to lump the Monkees in with the titans of the rock music world. Their two 1967 albums broke no new ground, and have been largely forgotten by all but the most dedicated fans. The casual listener is satisfied with a solid Greatest Hits album from the group. But that doesn’t mean the albums aren’t good, and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd is the best they ever released. In a world of streaming music, where all of these albums still live and wait to be heard, the casual fan would be well-served to listen. The Monkees may have been a pre-fabricated group built for television, but they were gifted with gold in their song choices and in their voices. They were much more than the hit singles.

Grade: A-