And who's next for the revisionist assesment?
The Bannana Splits? The Archies? Josie and the PussyCats?

That's why I posted. I know the of songwriters involved, the other musicians ( The Wrecking Crew? Awesome!), but I wanted to get, and did, a wider perspective on them as a collective entity, re. their own personal involvement/creative achievements, which I do know frustrated Peter Tork and Mike Nesmith from the very beginning, being actual bona fide musicians. From what I have read/herad so far, I definitely think there's a lot worth checking out. Stepehen Stills recommended Tork for the gig after he himself had been rejected due to 'wonky teeth and a bad haircut' (sic)! I remember them very well on TV in the early-mid 70s, and like the majority of HHers, I think I have enough of an age closeness to get the effect. Also, age dosen't come into it really, does it, for the serious music head. The cultural information re. any period/genre is there to be unearthed and dug, if you are so inclined. I do think the modern world would be infintely more palatable if current modern boy bands were 1/10th of the same quality!

That is only really true of their first two albums, which despite being mostly produced on their behalf by studio professionals are pretty lightweight on the whole. Third album, Headquarters, saw them trying to be a self-contained band for the first time, and as a result has some amateurish moments but many highlights. Fourth album Pisces Aquarius Capricorn & Jones Ltd is a compromise between doing it themselves and working with session musicians again and is a more solid set. After that they each went off in their own direction, self-producing a huge array of essentially solo material that would then get picked from for Monkees albums. So, yes, they did start out as an entirely manufactured band, but the paths they subsequently took (notably Nesmith's pioneering fusion of country and rock) are so interesting that the 'revisionism' is wholly justified.

And this is re-assessment I think, rather than revisionism. It matters not a jot whether you were born or not then - I was born then, and old enough to remember the big Beatles/Monkees rivalry between young fans at the time over here in the UK. That dosn't mean things can't be re-assesed. To say anything else smacks of snobbery to me.