I can't believe that this anniversary slipped past me. It was actually #1 on the Billboard charts starting December 2, 1967. I thought it started its run around a week later. Since "Daydream Believer" was #1 on the charts for 4 weeks I can safely say that it was still #1 on this day in music history. So this month is the 40th anniversary of the last #1 hit that the Monkees had. They did have another top 10 hit a few months later with "Valleri" but this was their last time at the top of the charts.
Also, a few months later it would see the end of their situation comedy show. They had slowly tried to morph the show into a variety series as that type of series was popular then. It would allow them to play a wider variety of music and guest stars if this had come to be. However, NBC wanted only another year of their sit-com. So the series ended with59 episodes.
Everyone is aware that the Monkees fought for creative control of their music and they won that battle. However, after their album Headquaters they found it difficult to maintain that control and still act on their TV show. Therefore, things reverted back to them only going into the studio to record while the producers set up the musicians. This was at least were their presence was still felt as their musical producer was their hand picked choice of Chip Douglas. "Daydream Believer" was produced by him and Davy Jones is the only Monkee on the record.
The Monkees were still popular but that popularity was starting to wind down. The did the movie Head and later the TV special 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee. They had hoped that either one of them would have been successful enough to continue their work in movies and television. However, both failed to capture the attention of the public. Peter Tork quit the group after they did the TV special. The others continued as a trio for another year. Then Mike Nesmith also bought out his contract with the Monkees. He had already written a hit song with "Different Drum" for Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys. Dot Records released his big band album of songs that he previously had written and recorded with the Monkees. It was called The Wichita Train Whistle Sings.
Micky and Davy were still under contract and with their show going into syndication were told they were still being held to the contract for one more album. This enabled the shows production company to put the new songs on the syndicated episodes. The record company I am sure had hopes it would boost sales so they could still sell albums. This was not to be as the writing was on the wall that it was the end of the Monkees. There was even a joke making the rounds that one of the remaining two would quit and the other would try to milk the Monkee machine even more by calling himself The Monkee.
The move for the show into syndication was smart as it kept them in the eye of their key audience. As a result there were attempts at reunions over the years. The most successful was in 1986 when Peter, Micky and Davy reunited for a world tour. Destiny also played into how successful the reunion was as MTV, unknown to the Monkees, had started playing their TV show and Arista was about to release a new Monkees Greatest Hits album. The TV show gave them an even younger audience and the tour became a family event. Arista asked them to record new songs for the album. Micky and Peter got together for three new songs on the album. One was released as a single and "That Was Then, This is Now" became the last top 20 hit for the Monkees when it peaked at #20 on the Billboard charts in August of 1986.
Click on the player below to hear Davy, Micky and Peter preform the song live in 1986.
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