Instant Replay (album)

Infobox Album | Name = Instant Replay
Type = Album
Artist = The Monkees


Released = February 15 1969
Recorded =
Genre = Rock
Length =
Label = Colgems Records
Producer = Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart, Neil Sedaka, Carole Bayer Sager
Reviews =
*Allmusic Rating|3|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:eifjzfsheh4k link]
Last album = "Head"
(1968)
This album = "Instant Replay"
(1969)
Next album = "Greatest Hits"
(1969)

"Instant Replay" is the seventh album by The Monkees. Issued after the cancellation of the group's NBC television series, it is also the first album released after Peter Tork left the group.

Although the Monkees had laid down dozens of tracks between the time of their last "studio" album, spring 1968's "The Birds, The Bees & the Monkees" (a soundtrack LP from their film "Head" had been released between the two studio LPs), several of the songs on "Instant Replay" actually dated from sessions up to two and a half years earlier.

The band's new music supervisor, Brendan Cahill, believed that previously unused tracks recorded in 1966, prior to the group's seizing control of their own recording process, was the way for the group to get back to the top. The album's lead single, "Tear Drop City," was one of the songs taken from the vault. The song was sped up around 9% from the original recording, changing the song's key from G to A-flat. The single, which Michael Nesmith later cryptically referred to as a "concession to certain people," was a retread of the group's first hit "Last Train to Clarksville" and only managed to reach #56 on the charts.

Despite the single's poor chart performance, the album itself reached the top 40 at #32, aided by several fine songs including Dolenz' "Just a Game," originally written during the sessions of the Headquarters album, and Nesmith's "Don't Wait for Me," the first released product of his 1968 sessions with Nashville studio musicians. Another highlight was Jones' "You and I," with lyrics bemoaning the here-today-gone-tomorrow pace of teen stardom, that featured guitar work from Neil Young.

Original album track listing

ide 1

#"Through The Looking Glass" (Baldwin, Boyce, Hart)
#"Don't Listen To Linda" (Boyce, Hart)
#"I Won't Be The Same Without Her" (Goffin, King)
#"Just A Game" (Dolenz)
#"Me Without You" (Boyce, Hart)
#"Don't Wait For Me" (Nesmith)

ide 2

#"You And I" (Chadwick, Jones)
#"While I Cry" (Nesmith)
#"Tear Drop City" (Boyce, Hart)
#"The Girl I Left Behind Me" (Sager, Sedaka)
#"A Man Without A Dream" (Goffin, King)
#"Shorty Blackwell" (Dolenz)

CD Bonus Tracks

#"Someday Man" (Nichols/Williams)
#"Carlisle Wheeling" (Alternate take)
#"Rosemarie" (Early) (Dolenz)
#"Smile" (Jones)
#"St. Matthew" (Alternate take) (Nesmith)
#"Me Without You" (Alternate take)
#"Through the Looking Glass" (Alternate take)