Never mind the smug snickers of laughter and the haters alike, this is the best album of 2016. Here The Monkees manage to accomplish a feat none of their contemporaries, including The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, were ever quite able to convincingly pull off – a re-formed re-group that actually sounds like the original. Lovingly produced by Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger with songs supplied by two generations of songwriting genius courtesy of Harry Nilsson, XTC’s Andy Partridge, Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo, the aforementioned Schlesinger, Boyce & Hart, Goffin & King, Neil Diamond, a Noel Gallagher/Paul Weller collaboration and contributions from the boys themselves Micky, Michael and Peter. This album not only legitimately recalls the innocence and jubilation of the swinging ’60’s it also fully and convincingly revisits the summer of love, except this loving summer fest was the summer of 2016 some 50 years later. Dig?
Key tracks: Good Times, You Bring The Summer, She Makes Me Laugh, Our Own World, Me & Magdalena, Love To Love, Little Girl, Wasn’t Born To Follow, I Know What I Know
