Why all the hate for the Monkees' Pool It!?

OK, I recently did a similar thread on Justus and it's been getting some very interesting, insightful, and widely divergent comments. This time I may be treading more dangerous territory. I don't have Pool It! (yet), but yesterday I finally heard the full album on Youtube. After all the bad reviews from fans and critics, I wasn't prepared to like it as much as I did. Bear with me and I'll tell you why:

1. I see it as sort of an '80s parallel to the first Monkees album in that it consists of the Monkees' vocals (minus the absent Nesmith) backed by studio musicians with no instrumental work by any of the Monkees except for occasionally Tork (who also played buried-in-the-mix rhythm guitar on the 2 Nesmith originals on the first album). Also, like on the first album, there are only 2 original compositions(one by Jones and one by Tork).

2. The first album, despite the relative lack of creative input from the Monkees themselves, still holds up well today as good '60s pop-rock. Pool It!,IMO, is a pretty good '80s pop-rock album with a techno sheen. It may sound a bit "dated" today due to being drenched in synthesizers (but let us not forget that the Monkees were among the very first artists to use them), but grading it on the curve by matching it up against other synth-heavy '80s albums, I hear songs that are just as catchy, hooky, and melodic as many of the album tracks by Duran Duran and Culture Club, and I would personally rather listen to Pool It! than almost anything by Wham!

3. I'm guessing that a lot of the hate for Pool It! is from people who either don't like '80s synth-pop, or consider it "dated", or just don't want to hear it from the Monkees. Even Nesmith's 1979 Infinite Rider on the Big Dogma album has an "updated" sound with heavy beats and techno touches.

4. I won't go completely track-by-track this time, but I'd like to point out a few highlights.
Jones' "Love You Forever" proves once again that while he was no Michael Nesmith, he was a quite capable pop tunesmith.
"Midnight" is a tough minor-keyed rocker that holds up well to similar music of the era.
"Since You Went Away" (sung by Tork) and "Gettin' In" (written and sung by Tork) are even singled out as highlights by some who have nothing good to say about the rest of the album, including Andrew Hickey in his book Monkee Music.
"Counting On You", sung by Jones, is a very pretty song and a nice way to close the album. I would call this one an '80s counterpart to "I Wanna Be Free'', and it's certainly better than the sappy "The Day We Fall In Love."

5. For me, the album's biggest flaw (like on the first 2 albums, Changes, and even Good Times!) is that the producers seemed to underestimate the Monkees' creativity, especially as writers.

Differing opinions are welcome (as long as we play nice) but I'm curious to know how many, if any, share my opinions or at least some of them.

 

There's an EP worth of good tunes, hopefully I remember the song titles correctly -
Heart and Soul
Getting In
Every Step of the Way
This Whole World

3/4 of the songs are on Listen to the Band box, so Pool It can be the one Monkee album not in my case logic binder.

 

Cause the album blows.

 

I actually like it better than "Justus", even without Michael Nesmith. Perhaps it caught me in a good mood, but I love those catchy singalong songs.

 

Those are the best tracks, and I'd add "Since You Went Away" and maybe "Don't Bring Me Down."

Problems with Pool It:
1: The Wreckless Eric song, probably the album's best, was already well known and didn't need to be covered; ditto (somewhat) the Ian Hunter song.
2: The dance-rock tracks (Midnight, Secret Heart, Gettin' In) already sounded dated, that sound was on the way out by the late 80s (and except for the Tork song, these weren't especially strong).
3: Three Davy ballads (again, not especially strong but all OK) is at least one too many.
4: None of the country/folk and garage sounds that were coming back into vogue at the time.
5: Why they revived a ska-scene in-joke from ten years earlier is anyone's guess.

Other than that, it's great! (and as noted, a few tracks really are good).

 

Pool It is a consensus disaster of the first order. They tried to appeal to new fans with 80s dance pop arrangements, keys & synths, minimizing the guitars, totally abandoning their 60s style and long-time fans. Pool It and Good Times are complete opposites. There has to be a worst Monkees album, and this my friends is definitely it. I'll never play it again...

 

My take:

The guys missed a big opportunity to capture the mainstream alt-rock sound of Bangles, REM, Smithereens, etc that was blowing up. One reason the monkees did so well the year before was because the best of the 60's stuff was classic-- and being aped by other respectable artists.

But if they were going to go in a different direction musically this one falls short.

"Gettin In'" was a least interesting and original. Could have made a good single but a moot point really because once MTV dropped them it was all bets off.

The producer has publicly stated that a whole album of Peter's songs would have at least made for a better (even if not commercially successful record.)

If I had to pick a handful of songs to listen to it'd be:
- Getting In
- Whole Wide World

And I guess that's about it. Maybe Heart and Soul and Since You Went Away.

 

Pool It isn't a terrible album, but it is the worst of the lot of Monkees albums. The sound is very dated, the cover is a bit disturbing (middle age men in a pool in very 80's swimwear), the cheezy title of the album. There are some good tunes, but they would have been a lot better if they weren't recorded with so much synth. She's Movin' In With Rico to me, makes The Day We Fall In Love sound like I'm A Believer. It is the only Monkees album that I waited years to get on CD (got it at Wal-Mart in a clearance bin). It just isn't a very good overall listen. I can listen to it every once in a while, but must skip Rico. Sorry, folks, but to me, just not very good...

 

When you have a catalog as significant as the Monkees, then one of their marginal releases sticks out as a failure. It isn't, but in relative terms, it just seems that way.

 

Pardon my ignorance.... What was the time frame in relation to their hit song "That Was Then... This Is Now". Was that a single from the same sessions that produced "Pool It"?

 

It is usually hated after hearing it

 

Heart and Soul
Don't Bring Me Down
Every Step of the Way
Midnight

There's your EP with the strongest tracks.

 

People have a petty, irrational hatred for 80s production (Oh, the Humanity!) Nevermind that "Heart and Soul" alone tops every song on Justus.

 

Same year (1986), but I'm not sure if it was recorded at the same sessions.

 

No, it wasn't. That song, along with Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere and Kicks, was recorded and released a year before the Pool It! sessions began, had no involvement from Davy Jones, was produced by a different person (Michael Lloyd as opposed to Roger Bechirian) and featured a completely different group of musicians. Definitely not from the same sessions, but fairly close in terms of when they were made.

Pool It! was recorded and released in 1987, a year after That Was Then, This Is Now.

 

I had read somewhere that the producer wanted it to sound like mid '80's Squeeze but that Davy wanted the synths and electronic sound. I have always hoped that there is a version of Pool It with the retro sound of the day out there. All in all, it's a fairly poor album that could have been much better with a slightly more organic production

 

Depeche Monkees

 

Not my favorite Monkees album, but it has a few good tunes... It's just too bad that Peter's ideas were cast aside in favor of what Davy wanted: Even if they had to come to a compromise/middle-ground, I'm guessing the results would have been more palatable, but we'll never know...

PS: For the record, I think every Monkees album has something that's at least good on it, even the beleagured "Pool It!"...

 

Agreed...

 

I don't hate Pool It. It's no Headquarters but I think it's the best of The Monkees' albums that are generally recognized as bad. Pool It has some good songs.

 

No Mike.

I'm a card carrying member of the "I Hate The '80s Society".

Face it, guitar tones of The '80s generally sucked.

 

"Heart and Soul" was only a minor charting record, and with that fate, it's doubtful the follow-up single would have done any better chart-wise (and it didn't!), but still, there had to be a stronger follow-up song than "Every Step of the Way"... I really don't care for that cut: Sure, it's better than "Moving in With Rico", but among the rest of the tracks on the album, something else would have better a better choice, IMO... I'm guessing they probably felt they had to have a Davy single, that or Davy insisted upon it, both of which I could see as being feasible...

 

It's lousy: mediocre and bad songs, mediocre and bad arrangements.

By any standard.

When considered in the context of the Monkees chance at a revival it's an epic failure.

But by any criterion it's a failure.

 

For me it is all about replay factor. Played Pool It from 1987 to present about 5 times, Justus about 10-15 and Good Times going on about 30.

I agree with the poster mentioning capturing the same groove as the Bangles, REM and what about Squeeze and the Smithereens? Man what a missed opportunity. And of course no Nez.

My opinion is that if Good Times was released at the peak of 80s Monkeemania, their history would have been rewritten...of course some of our younger songwriters would not have been present.