Mark Mikel on The Monkees part four

Changes Exit Nesmith and time to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Pretty useless album in the context of the Monkees canon. Just a return to the early Jeff Barry method of production without the successful results.Album highlights:Oh My My, I Love You Better, 99 Pounds, Midnight Train


Pool It! A reunion album without Nesmith? What's the point? This album is the most powerful argument for the Monkee-hater. Worthless 80's crap that even a Monkees freak like me would not listen to it.Album highlights: None

Justus Finally a reunion of all four Monks playing every instrument and writing every song on the album. The first and only such occurrence in their whole career. But Nesmith seemed more like a saboteur than a contributor. He rewrote bizarrely lame lyrics to Circle Sky and used a 90's grunge guitar sound for the whole album. He also contributed very little vocally. Dolenz should have played his Gretsch drum-set but instead played on electronic drums (bleeaachhh!!). Plus it was oddly backward- Dolenz & Jones writing more than Tork & Nesmith? (weird) As disappointing as this album was- it was miles above "Pool It!" I would not recommend it to anyone, save the extreme fan.Album highlights: not really any but I suppose the best ones are Never Enough, Admiral Mike, Regional Girl, It's My Life.

If you want to dabble in Monkees, I'd say get one of these comps:The Monkees Anthology, The Monkees Music Box They both do a decent job of grabbing the essentials.If you want to dive in head first. Buy the actual albums that have been released on Rhino as deluxe editions. These releases contain the best sounding mixes available plus includes the axed songs and informative liner notes. That way you get all their best stuff without having to buy the Missing Links sets.
http://monkees.rhino.com/shop/