The Monkees vs. The Beatles: Showdown of the Sixties Boy Bands

/The Monkees, 5/17/2012, Available at https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2fM4vSR96elZXisd0Uret9hn3aHvSemAb949LnhhlHOvDkT_XXo-BFmgEg1My9XNvhgby4l07acow15uuJ_p4_zvLhWh6oHMdui0BPOcdrzw7HXP2432OrcuLT2WPR_8F6e7hCXigLvNk/s1600/front.jpg

This week I decided to compare and contrast The Monkees and The Beatles. The Monkees are often called the “American Beatles” due to the style of music they did and they both came out at about the same time.

The Monkees formed In Los Angeles, California around 1965. The band performed music in 1965-1969, 1985-1986, 1995-1996. Originally the band was formed as a T.V. show about four poor hippies that liked music.

In the auditions only one Monkee was found; that was Michael Nesmith. Davy Jones, Peter Tork, and Mickey Dolenz were hired as actors for the show.

Keno’s Classic Rock and Roll Web Site describes the band like this:

Davy Jones didn't know how to play a note of music. They were hired first and foremost as actors for the TV show; with no plans to have an actual real life band come about. It was decided for the show that the members would be portrayed as followed: Nesmith as the lead guitarist, Tork as the bassist, Dolenz, who could play guitar, was at first going to be the rhythm guitarist, but Jones, who was to be the drummer, was deemed by the show's producers as to being too small to sit behind the drum kit and still be seen. So Dolenz, who never before played the drums, took that part and Jones, well, he was placed out front as the cute one. All four would take turns at lead vocals, but as it turned out, the two actors, Jones and Dolenz, were the better singers and in time would get more of the lead vocals, with Nesmith handling the vocals for the country rock tunes (which he mainly wrote). Yet the truth of the matter was that Dolenz was the group's main lead singer, even if that fact was never advertised.  

The Beatles on the other hand, who formed in Liverpool, England, changed society not just music during the sixties.

Although the band had many members come through the years the ones remembered today are Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and John Lennon.

Men who were involved in the band before its great success include Stu Sutcliffe, Peter Best, and several other fill ins throughout their years.

The band was have said to officially started when Paul joined John’s band, The Quarrymen. During this time George joined the band after Stu left; George was only thirteen at the time.

Once George joined the band’s name was changed to The Silver Beatles, which later got shortened again to just The Beatles.

The Beatles (Abbey Road), 5/17/2012, Available at http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01790/beatles_1790559c.jpg

The Beatles first single “Love Me Do”/”P.S. I Love You” was recorded in 1962. Something very special happened with the song, this was the fact that both Lennon and McCartney wrote the song.
Keno describes the band as follows:

Up till then most rock bands only did cover songs. The song barely made the British top 20. The Beatles phenomenon didn't truly kick in until "Please Please Me"  hit number one on the British charts in early 1963. The Beatles music took off  like a rocket after that, their debut LP, Please Please Me, which was recorded in just one day, topped the British charts for 30 weeks. They were now the biggest rock act in the UK. Beatlemania would soon take over America and the rest of the world. "I Want to Hold Your Hand"  their first official U.S. release went straight to number one shortly after it's December 1963 release. After their appearance on the The Ed Sullivan TV Show in February of 1964, they  had had the top five best selling singles in the U.S.; they also had the number one and number two spots in the album charts, as well as several other entries throughout the Top 100. No one at that time (or anyone after) would dominated the market for pop music like the Beatles did. Another very important thing was that they opened the door for just about every other rock band that followed them. They would continue  to put out one after another number one hits until their breakup in 1970.

Up until the mid sixties they had a “good boy” image, after they lost their image the band’s drug usage came into the open.

After the band broke up in the early seventies Paul and John both had other solo music careers. Paul and John fell out soon after. They finally made up but just short months later John was assassinated in 1980 around New York City.

George Harrison succumbed to a long battle with cancer in late 2001.

Now that you know some background information on each band let’s go over some comparisons on the bands.

• They were both “boy bands” of the sixties.
• Both had four members
• They had relatively the same style of their music
• The Monkees mimicked The Beatles on an episode of their T.V. show

Differences of the two bands are:

• They came from different countries
• The Monkees started out as a T.V. show with no intention of being an actual band.
• The Beatles started out as a different band that changed members frequently.
• The Beatles are more well known than The Monkees to younger generations.