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

Not sure by any standard...I understand why most will say this...but the single and album did hit the Top 100 and Rhino didn't have any problem with all the sales and attention. If it wasn't for the MTV snub, it would have been even bigger.

I like it and continue to listen to it...it's not my favorite, but I'll take it over The Monkees Present any day.

I'm also glad we get Good Times! to help most people get past Pool It! and Justus (another album I like).

 

Whether it was "Pool It!" or an album like "Good Times", if the whole MTV debacle still happened, they would have suffered the same fate in the 80s... The first single from "Pool It" ("Heart and Soul") was a majorly requested video on MTV's video call-in show, but without MTV backing it/playing it, the single basically fizzled out, which led to lower than hoped for sales for the album... It's not so much the quality of "Pool It!" that determined their fate in the 80s, it was the lack of support from their once champion, MTV... BTW,"Pool It!" is still Rhino's biggest selling album to date...

Edited to add that jfmlaugh is right about the single and album charting, neither was a total "flop"...

 

I really wanted to like Pool It! when it came out, but I just couldn't (and I did try). 'Heart and Soul' is okay, and one or two other songs may be tolerable, but it seems to mainly consist of soaring synths (that make No Protection by Starship sound positively restrained) and a few ballads sung in the style of an unexpectedly aggressive George Sanders. I'm surprised (but pleasantly surprised) that The Monkees were ever able to recover from this.

 

I think some people really need to get over their irrational, juvenile hatred of synths. I mean, grow up!

 

I hear that some people don't like harpsichords either.

 

They're my keepers from the album too. I think the only 4 tracks that made it to my iTunes library.

 

"Midnight" is sung very well - and would be perfect on a Miami Vice soundtrack, not a Monkees album.

As others have said, it's hard to get past the dated-on-arrival sound. Even the best songs have moments that make my toes curl (e.g., the "triumphant synth" key change during the middle eight). Micky's vocals, as always, are spot on, but most of the material is not suited to the Monkees. Peter's efforts are decent and, barring "Counting On You" and the song with the ridiculous title I can't even say, I can stomach the more treacly Davy moments. But it's not go-to listening by any stretch. The best-of-the-best of the album has been anthologized.

I'm not a huge fan of Justus either, but it's a more listenable experience because they play all the instruments and Nez is a participant.

 

Interesting! If it's their biggest selling album to date, does this mean it' still selling or simply that it outsold the rest of the Rhino catalog in the past? Judging by the high prices for Pool It! on amazon, I assumed it must be out of print. My recent order for a vinyl copy was cancelled because it was out of stock.

 

I think some people really need to get over their irrational, juvenile love of The Monkees...
I mean, grow up!

 

As a young man not wanting to appear juvenile I gravitated to more "serious" music. I had to grow up to fully appreciate The Monkees.

 

I agree. Sure, they can be cheesy (and sometimes even that can be a good thing in a cheesy sort of way), but they can also be used very creatively. Wendy (Walter) Carlos' Switched On Bach and other albums continue to amaze me.

 

Pool It wasn't overwhelmed with synths. Problem was that the guitars and drums had that '80s Starship/Chicago sound, which was already fading by '87.

 

Yes. The sound was dated. If it had come out a few years earlier, it would have fit in better. If the songs had been a little better, that might have helped.

I'll say it again-- they should have aped the Bangles.

 

I think some people need to get over their irrational, juvenile need to threadcrap in topics that don't really concern them.

 

I loved "Heart And Soul" back then. I thought it had all the makings of a huge summer of 1987 hit. I also liked "Don't Bring Me Down" and thought it had hit potential. I don't think the latter has aged well though. "Heart And Soul" sounds soooo 1987 but I still think it is enjoyable to this day. The album should have been released in May or June. By August, there was a feeling of that ship has sailed, and the MTV boycott of course was the nail in the coffin. "Every Step Of The Way" was an awful choice for a second single. I thought so then and I think so now.

These days, I still enjoy the Wreckless Eric cover (I thought it worked very well for Micky) and "Gettin' In" (still sounds fresh and interesting to me). I also have a real thing for "Long Way Home"...always have. I'm not even sure why. I just like it. So yeah, my EP would be Heart And Soul, Long Way Home, Don't Bring Me Down, Gettin' In, Whole Wide World. You can throw the rest out. "Moving In With Rico" should be buried in a box in a deep enough hole that no one will ever hear it again.

 

Trying to be current with your sound is a bit of a double-edged sword. I realize the Monkees were trying to be trendy with this album (or maybe it's just a sound they liked), but they fell victim to the fickle nature of musical commercialism. Good Times! is very retro-'60s so many would say that ship sailed 50 years ago, but following one's artistic vision partially means ignoring what's trendy and going with what you like or what you feel. As Pete Seeger said, "The more up to date something is, the sooner it will be out of date." No matter how in or out of style it is, if I like it, it sounds timeless to me.

 

I don't hate the Monkees. They just don't offer too much of what I like after they ditched Don Kirshner and did their own thing.

 

Alas! Artistic integrity often results in commercial suicide (although Headquarters and Pisces were pretty commercially successful, and "Daydream Believer" was a worldwide #1). Kirshner was better off with the Archies. Red and yellow cartoons don't talk back.

 

Actually Reggie smashed his fist through a wall and threatened Kirshner and Hot Dog bit him on the leg once.

 

I'm not 100 % sure, but I would guess that it outsold everything else in the past... I can't picture that it's still selling, because as far as I know, it's out of print by Rhino (I think their last reissue of it was in the 90s with The Monkees Original Classics reissue campaign) and any "new" release of it might be the Friday Music reissue (which I don't think would count toward Rhino sales anyway?)

 

You won't get any argument from me on that... I'm guessing they felt they had to have a "Davy single" and that cut was probably the one they felt was the most commercial: But of course, that's all a guess, and if it's what they were thinking, it was wrong...

 

One can only imagine what Kansas must have done to him when he said, "Can you come up with something that will get played on the radio that's not 12 minutes long?" (Well, I guess they did appease him with "Carry On, Wayward Son" and "Dust in the Wind". But I digress.)

 

Never understood the hate for Pool It.
It came out when I was first getting into The Monkees.
It was brand new music from a group I loved.
Sure it had that 80s production, but I still feel a certain nostalgia for it.

Darryl

 

When used badly, as they were for much of the 80s, it can be bad. Some places (Billy Joel's great The Nylon Curtain comes to mind) it works fine. But too many artists used it as a crutch in the 80s, and, in retrospect, it marrs a lot of otherwise good albums from that time.

Not that I ever liked Pool It. Synths or not, crummy album.

But everyone's tastes are different. If someone doesn't like synths much, why is that juvenile? Personally, I like the early Moog synths (including what The Monkees were doing) in the 60s or early 70s, not so much what was happening in the 80s.

 

Well, Rhino's mostly an reissue label... Not a lot of new music. But, a new, hyped Monkees album on the heels of a big comeback (86/87) meant at least some sales. The album wasn't very good, and, in spite of some radio play for the first single, MTV abandoned them, so it wasn't a monster seller by any stretch but it was their biggest seller just by virtue of being a new Monkees album.

Funny how Good Times! charted much higher, but almost certainly won't sell as well since (practically) no one buys music anymore.