David Crosby - David Crosby (1968)

David Crosby got fired from the Byrds in October 1967. This came after a long period of instability within the band, which lasted for the greater part of the year and culminated in the band's disastrous appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival. In it, Crosby constantly talked in between songs about conspiracy theories involving John F. Kennedy's assassination, and to further the other members' annoyance, sat in for a revolting Neil Young at the Buffalo Springfield's performance as a favor to his friend Stephen Stills. Tensions furthered when the band refused to record his song "Triad", objecting to its' sexually charged lyrics, and when Crosby in turn refused to participate in the recording of "Goin' Back", believing the band should record only original material. Because of that, Crosby was finally fired and original member Gene Clark was invited to rejoin the band and finish the album they were working on, The Notorious Byrd Brothers. While Clark himself wouldn't last long, David found himself aimless for a few months, spending most of his time sailing, writing songs, and staying with friends, without any definitive plans going ahead. In March 1968, armed with a few songs and with the idea to begin a solo career of some sort, David entered the studio with The Doors, Love, and Janis Joplin producer Paul Rothschild at the helm, planning on recording some demos to see if any record labels would be interested in signing him. Although label interest proved slow, Crosby came out of this session with about four songs or unfinished ideas that showed great promise, such as "Games".

In April of 1968, Buffalo Springfield, the band Crosby had sat in with just a few months prior, had finally split up for good, which meant that his friend Stills was also unemployed. The two proceeded to reconnect and start working together in earnest, collaborating with the Jefferson Airplane's Paul Kantner to write lyrics to David's "Wooden Ships", and record a studio demo for a song of Crosby's called "Long Time Gone", as well as some other songs written by Stills sometime in June. Meanwhile, the Croz kept on recording solo demos in the hope of getting picked up by a label, recording the first versions we know of the great "Guinnevere" and "Laughing" right about this time. However, everything changed in July, when at a party at former Mamas & Papas member Cass Elliot's Laurel Canyon home, the two met Graham Nash from the Hollies. Jamming together to one of Stills' new compositions and immediately noticing a musical bond, especially when it came to three-part harmonies, the three quickly get together and become one of rock's very first supergroups, the very creatively titled Crosby, Stills & Nash. With that, any plans David had of recording a solo album became secondary to the new group, which very quickly took priority over them. With the trio succeeding in attracting major label interest and recording one of the most successful debut albums of all time in early 1969, those plans became virtually non-existent, with DC only returning to the idea of recording a solo album by the time CSN(and Y!) had spectacularly disbanded in late 1970, with If I Could Only Remember My Name.

This whole story leaves us with the question: What if David Crosby had succeeded in recording his first solo album in mid-1968? In order to answer that, we must first gather together all of the songs he had available to him at this moment, either in finished form or that he had begun writing during this period and would finish at a later date. After that, we must select the version of said song that most closely matches Crosby's vision circa 1968, and that features the least involvement from Stills and Nash. While Stills and possibly Nash would have most likely guested on the record on guitar and vocals, we're talking about an actual solo album here, meaning this is a timeline where CS&N either didn't happen or happened later than it did in ours, giving him the time to release this album. Considering Crosby's songs are relatively long at about 4 to 5 minutes each, and it was becoming en vogue within the rock world to release albums with fewer and fewer songs starting at about this time, I reckon an eight-song, 40-minute long record would be plenty. And considering he probably didn't have any more songs than that written, it'll have to do nonetheless. Because of that, songs written before The Byrds' breakup can also be considered for inclusion, if he continued performing them regularly after his break from them and they weren't released elsewhere by the band, and solo songs that weren't in a particularly advanced state of completion will also be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to inclusion here. With all of that out of the way, here's what I think Croz's first solo album could have looked like:

Wooden Ships (Crosby, Stills, and Nash)

Tamalpais High (If I Could Only Remember My Name)
Guinnevere (CSN)

Laughing (If I Could Only Remember My Name)

-

Triad (Deja Vu)

Games (Graham Nash, David Crosby)

Long Time Gone (CSN Demos)

Kids and Dogs (If I Could Only Remember My Name)

Download link:
David Crosby - David Crosby (1968)

The Croz, pictured sometime in early 1968 in California.

We start off this album with a blast, with "Wooden Ships" from the first CSN record. Although co-written by Stephen Stills and the Airplane's Paul Kantner, the original idea for the melody of this song came from David, as can be seen in his solo demo, which makes it fair game for inclusion here. He'd sing lead on the full song, as he did live with the Lighthouse band, but other than that the song would be unchanged. A great opener to any album, it starts things off strong for David. Up next is "Tamalpais High", demoed during the March 1968 Rothschild session as an acoustic guitar instrumental with scat singing, the kind of song he seemed to be very keen on writing around this time. The arrangement on the 1971 album is a bit different from what I envision for this album, but it'll have to do as no other versions exist. In the third slot, we have "Guinnevere", from a studio session in mid-1968 with Cyrus Faryar of the MFQ on bouzouki and Jack Casady of the Airplane on bass. The only real glimpse we get of what this theoretical album would actually sound like, and by this sample, it would be pretty amazing. Easily the high point of this reconstruction. "Laughing", inspired by a conversation he had with his friend George Harrison, finishes off side one. It was demoed in the studio in May 1968, shortly after the others, warranting its inclusion here. Two completed studio versions of the song exist, one on his first record in 1971 and one on the shaky Byrds reunion album from 1973. Out of the two, the one that sounds the most like Croz circa 1968 is the first, which means it gets to be included here.

Side two starts off with his ode to menage a trois "Triad". Since this song was (allegedly) the reason Croz got kicked out of the Byrds, it's only fair we should include it in his first solo album, right? Presented here in a beautiful solo acoustic arrangement from the Deja Vu sessions, David gets to sing it instead of giving it away to the Jefferson Airplane. Next comes album highlight "Games", another song that was performed for Paul Rothschild in March '68, this time presented in completed form, before being inexplicably shelved for another four years. We can use the Crosby & Nash version as its arrangement is pretty close to the original and sounds like something Croz would come up with back then, Graham's harmonies notwithstanding. We follow it up with the only other rocker on the album alongside the opener, which is "Long Time Gone". Demoed in the studio in July 1968 with help from Stephen Stills, we use this demo version to provide the album with yet another authentic recording that comes from the 1968 sessions, alongside "Guinnevere". Again, as would be the case with "Wooden Ships", David sings the full song instead of sharing the lead with Stephen. "Kids and Dogs", the final song on the album and also the last from the March 1968 demo session, is another haunting song with scat vocals, which was inexplicably left off the If I Could Only Remember My Name album in 1971, despite being recorded in a beautiful 7-minute version with guitar by Jerry Garcia and some fantastic multitracked vocals by David. And it's that very version that ends our album.

This hypothetical debut is 40 minutes long with two roughly 20-minute sides, about what you'd hope for in length for an album back then. One shortcoming this album does have is its absolute lack of potential singles, but since David's material was probably meant for the album-oriented FM radio format that was beginning roughly at this time anyway, that isn't that much of a problem. Self-titled for the lack of a better title, it features a painting of him by his friend Joni Mitchell as the cover, the two of them spending a lot of time together at this point as he had produced her debut album for Reprise Records. Speaking of which, this album would've probably been released by either Reprise, due to the Joni connection and the fact other similar artists were also signed to them, or by Elektra Records, of which Rothschild was an employee. This album probably wouldn't sell that much, but would be rightly lauded as a great record by the critics, with Crosby's jazzy melodies and beautiful voice propelling the songs, and great songwriting throughout. A moody album without many fast-paced songs, it provides a great continuation to the sound Croz had already been hinting at with songs such as "Everybody's Been Burned" and "Tribal Gathering" with the Byrds. I honestly believe that grouping together to form Crosby, Stills and Nash might've been detrimental to Crosby and Stills as songwriters, as illogical as that sounds. That move might've prevented him from getting the individual praise he so deserved as a singer and songwriter, something we've tried to do right by in this reconstruction.

Sources:

- David Crosby - If I Could Only Remember My Name

- Crosby, Stills & Nash - Crosby, Stills & Nash

- Crosby, Stills & Nash - CSN [Box set]

- Crosby, Stills & Nash - CSN Demos

- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Dejá Vù [Box set]

- Crosby & Nash - Graham Nash David Crosby

Guns n' Roses - Chinese Democracy (2001)

After four years of demos, rehearsals, and the departure of all members of the band with the exception of Dizzy Reed and Axl Rose, recording in earnest for the sixth Guns n' Roses album began in early 1998 at Rumbo Recorders. Alongside Axl and Dizzy, guitarists Paul Tobias and Robin Finck, keyboardist Chris Pitman and drummer John Freese completed this new lineup of the band. Recording with the seven of them went on for a while, with Axl being described as "a couple of weeks on, a couple of weeks off" during this period, and the band being in "writing mode", with much more writing than recording going on at that time. Producers such as Youth were considered, with him doing some pre-production work on the album right around this time, before being replaced by Sean Beavan, who'd produced Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails before joining the project in July 1998. During this timeframe the band wrote and recorded much new material, filling many CDs with ideas and fragments of songs, as well as recording many fully fledged songs, such as "Madagascar" and "Prostitute", which Pitman and Rose had begun writing early in '98. This new material was very inspired by hip hop and industrial music, with the influence of Nine Inch Nails clearly showing in the music, but not many vocals were recorded during this first year of recording, though, with Axl mostly laying down ideas rather than finished vocals, leaving the material unfinished until then.

So it seems that between mid-1998 and early 1999, the band was now in "recording mode", recording the basic tracks to many songs that would be worked on further during this period. By mid-1999, work had slowed down a bit, with work on the instrumental parts being mostly done by then but no finished vocals in sight just yet. Guitarist Robin Finck left to tour again with Nine Inch Nails, while Axl finally began recording lead vocals for the album in August 1999, practically finishing recording them by November. With Finck gone, Axl had Queen guitarist Brian May overdub guitar solos onto three or four songs the band had been working on at the time, without yet focusing on finding a full-time replacement for Finck. At roughly the same time, the first results of the sessions were released, the very industrial "Oh My God" on the soundtrack to the film End of Days in November. It seems that by the time 1999 ended, the basic tracks of the record were virtually finished, with only some overdubbing and mixing left to be worked on. Even the album title was decided at this instance, with Axl commenting on interviews that the new album had been christened Chinese Democracy, after the song of the same name. Songs such as "Catcher in the Rye", "I.R.S.", "If the World" and "There Was a Time" were even previewed for Rolling Stone magazine that November, most of them seemingly in an advanced state of recording and showing a lot of promise for the future of the band.

With 2000 coming, more lineup changes came: guitarist Buckethead joined the band as Finck's replacement, while drummer Josh Freese finally got fed up with waiting for the album to get ready and left to form A Perfect Circle, replaced with frequent Buckethead collaborator Brain a few months down the line. Buckethead joined the project and immediately started recording demos and ideas for new songs at his notoriously fast pace, while Brain seemingly didn't replace Freese's drum tracks then. In April, and with the album apparently in its final stages of completion, producer Sean Beavan was replaced with former Queen and The Cars producer Roy Thomas Baker, with label Interscope Records and their boss Jimmy Iovine seemingly unhappy with the sound of the album under Beaven's helm. Further mixing and overdubbing took place from then until November, with Bucket adding guitar to songs worked on previously such as "Madagascar" and "Rhiad and the Bedouins". Plans were even made for the band to tour in the summer of 2001, with warmup shows scheduled at the House of Blues in Las Vegas and the Rock in Rio 3 festival in Rio de Janeiro that January. It seemed like a mid-2001 release with a tour to follow in the Summer was slowly becoming a reality for Chinese Democracy, with the record seemingly only needing mastering and artwork to be ready. But as you probably already know, things weren't going to be that simple for Axl and his bandmates.

In November 2000, Bob Ezrin, formerly producer of Alice Cooper and Pink Floyd, signed on as A&R man for the album and listened to what the band had made so far. He came out of it claiming they had only come up with "three good songs". The album proceeds to go into development hell for eight years, with Axl essentially losing his sanity in the process. That leaves us with the question: what if Axl had released Chinese Democracy in the summer of 2001? Luckily for us, four discs of Rough Mixes in varying degrees of completion dating from both Beavan's March 2000 and Roy Thomas Baker's October/November 2000 mixing sessions, as well as instrumental demos and other curios were created in March 2001, and very infamously leaked in 2019. That means whatever was under consideration for GnR's sixth record was probably in those CDs, leaving for us the mission of making an album out of those. The first disc is clearly the ten most finished songs at the time, with a couple of other finished songs sprinkled throughout the other three discs, some of which would even make the album in 2008, in a heavily different form. Speaking of which, one of the few things Axl eventually got right in '08 was the album's sequencing, which means we'll emulate it as much as we can here, replacing eventual absentees with available songs that have the same vibe. We'll also be aiming at about 14 songs to make the album, as most GnR releases do. With all of that, let's have a look at what we've come up with:

Chinese Democracy (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Hard School (Rough Mixes CD-3)
Perhaps (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Street of Dreams (Rough Mixes CD-1)
If the World (Rough Mixes CD-2)
There Was a Time (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Catcher in the Rye (Rough Mixes CD-1)

State of Grace (Rough Mixes CD-3)
Rhiad and the Bedouins (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Silkworms (Rough Mixes CD-1)
I.R.S. (Rough Mixes CD-3)
Madagascar (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Atlas Shrugged (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Prostitute (Rough Mixes CD-1)

Bonus tracks:
Oh My God (The End of Days OST)

Eye on You (Rough Mixes CD-2)

Nothing (Rough Mixes CD-4)

Axl Rose and Buckethead performing during the 2002 VMAs

Starting off the album the only way we possibly can we have the great version of "Chinese Democracy" mixed by Roy Thomas Baker in November 2000, starting off the album with its title track and with a great rocker, that would sound right at home with some of Guns n' Roses' more famous output. Released a couple of years ago by the Axl/Slash/Duff lineup by all people, "Hard School" serves the function of being one of the few authentic rockers on the album, that being the reason I pulled this November '00 Baker mix off the third CD and slotted it into the equally aggressive "Shackler's Revenge"'s place. Following is the first song on the album that's still officially unreleased, "Perhaps" was mixed in March 2000 by Beaven and is the closest this version of the album can come to an obvious first single. Sequenced as track no. 3 as it's equally as poppy and accessible as "Better", and it works well in that role. Since Sean Beavan confirmed that "The Blues" was only a working title in an interview this year, we can retitle this to its eventual name, "Street of Dreams". An October 2000 mix by Roy Thomas Baker, this ballad was already one of the highlights of the 2008 album, and is even better here. As track five we have another song that would eventually make the album in a superior, earlier version, "If the World" was mixed in November 2000 by Roy Thomas Baker and taken from the second disc of Rough Mixes, taking up the same spot it always did in CD's tracklist.

While many fans miss Buckethead's solo that we got in the song's finished version, I like this mix of "There Was a Time" just fine, in an October 2000 mix by Roy Thomas Baker, a nice change of pace from the hip hop weirdness of "If the World". As the seventh song on the album, "Catcher in the Rye" is another power ballad with the services of Brian May on guitar,  given to us in a March 2000 mix by Sean Beavan, which again is much better than the eventual replacement. Given that we have thirteen more or less finished songs, we have one spot open. And out of the remaining unfinished songs that have vocals ("Eye on You", "Nothing" and "State of Grace"), the one that's most release-worthy and finished-sounding is by far "State of Grace", which grants its spot as the eighth track on the album, replacing the similarly industrial "Scraped". Mixed in March 2000 by Sean Beavan. Up next is "Rhiad and the Bedouins", in a November '00 Baker mix which is miles better than the Chinese Democracy version and the best rocker of the album. A song that was given a rather atrocious reworking by Slash and Duff, "Silkworms" comes in a November '00 mix by RTB from CD1 of Rough Mixes. By far the song that's most far removed from the original Guns n' Roses sound, it takes the place of Buckethead oddity "Sorry" in the tracklist. It's missing its bridge vocals, as we'd grown used to in the 2001 Rock in Rio version, but other than that it's a pretty solid mix. About half an hour's work is needed!

Taken from CD3 of the Rough Mixes in a March 2000 Sean Beavan mix, "I.R.S." is a much-needed rocker, which alongside "Hard School" breaks the rather slow pace of the CD1 material and gives us some authentic Gn'R rock. The song earmarked to be "the epic" of the album comes next in the form of "Madagascar", in a November '00 Baker mix which closely resembles the version of the song performed at Rock in Rio in 2001, MLK speech and all. As the second to last track of the album, we have the last song in this reconstruction that is still officially unreleased "Atlas Shrugged", in a March 2000 Beavan mix. Also, the last song to feature a Brian May solo, it takes the place of the ballad "This I Love", which in turn was only added to the album at the eleventh hour, replacing "Atlas Shrugged". Historic reparations! Closing things off is "Prostitute", coming again in a much superior version to what we ended up getting in 2008. Coming in a March 2000 Beavan mix, it delivers a pretty balanced album, with an 8 to 6 ratio between Baker and Beavan mixes, respectively. Released nearly two years before this album would hypothetically come out, "Oh My God" didn't make much of an impression on anybody, and wasn't worked on further as demonstrated by the Rough Mixes CDs. All of that leads me to think this song wasn't meant for inclusion on the album at this stage. It's still good enough for a bonus track and non-album B-side, though, which is what it becomes here.

Clocking in at about an hour and four minutes, this version of Chinese Democracy would most certainly benefit from the timing of its release. Hip Hop and Industrial-influenced based bands like Limp Biskit were all the rage back in '01, and this album would sound right at home on modern rock radio at the time, both hip and nostalgic. Critically, seven fewer years of hype and unrealistic expectations would certainly soften the reception to the album, and releasing an album that's actually way better than the one we got would also help things too. There's no understating what damage the eight years of promises and delays did to Guns n' Roses Mk II, turning the album and the new lineup into a joke before anyone even heard a note from them. We also use one of the many alternate covers proposed for Chinese Democracy before the record's release, and the one that I've always liked best, as corny as it is. One of the main problems of the album, and what's probably the reason that Interscope didn't want to release it, is that it has no clear lead single. If I had to nominate one, though, I'd be tempted to go with "Atlas Shrugged" or "Perhaps", the two poppiest songs on the album. It really is a shame what was supposed to be a creative rebirth to one of the most successful bands of the world ended up essentially becoming its death sentence and transformation into an "oldies" act through a further eight years of misery and promises. Both this material and the fans deserved a lot better.

Sources:

- Guns n' Roses - Rough Mixes (CDs 1 - 4)

- Music From the Motion Picture End of Days

- Chinese Whispers - The Secret History of the New Studio Album

The Monkees - More of the Monkees (1966)

The Monkees' first self-titled album was released in October 1966 through Colgems Records, a month after the debut of the TV series of the same name, and two months after the release of the hit single "Last Train to Clarksville". When released, the music from the TV show became a bigger success than the show it was created to promote, with more people buying the records than watching the show on NBC. In a move controversial to this day, the band members themselves were not allowed to contribute instrumentally to the album, and while Monkee Mike Nesmith produced a couple of sessions, and even used Peter Tork as a guitarist on the sessions, the group was mostly left to contribute only vocally, with most of the playing and writing coming from the Boyce & Hart duo and their backing band, the Candy Store Prophets. This displeased the band to some extent, as they were led to believe they were to be making instrumental contributions to the band's recordings, especially the two musicians of the lineup, Peter Tork and Mike Nesmith. This arrangement, which was chalked up to the hectic schedule they were subjected to in order to make an album as fast as they could, was however maintained when the time came to record their second album, which would be titled More of the Monkees and was also to be the source of much discord between the band and their management.

A rushed release, released quickly in order to capitalize on the massive and surprising popularity of their first record, the four Monkees weren't even aware that the album had been released, let alone been given any say on the sequencing or artwork of the album. The band learned that MoTM had been released while on tour, when they saw copies of it on a record store window, and were furious with it's artwork, a promotional piece for a department store which saw them wearing their clothes, as well as its self-congratulatory liner notes, courtesy of musical director Don Kirschner, which lathed praise onto the songwriters involved while only mentioning the Monkees in passing. Even more egregious in fact was Kirschner's job at song selection: such horrible schlock as "The Day We Fell in Love" was selected for the album while much stronger material was left in the bin, which even lead Mike Nesmith to call the album "probably the worst album in the history of the world". It was this incident and the horrible job their management did at creating a sophomore album that infamously led Nesmith to punch his fist into a hotel room wall and together with the other three members basically demand artistic control over the Monkees, which gave us such great albums as Headquarters and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, where they played their own instruments themselves and were allowed to produce their own albums.

That leaves us with the question: what if the Monkees' second album was better? Considering the fact that the album was so badly compiled it lead to the revolt that yielded the Monkees' most creative and free period, you'd think the sheer lousiness of the second LP was the price to pay for it. However, the sheer amount of quality material left in the cutting room floor practically begs us to improve on it, and I believe that the key to better quality control could be following the TV show's musical choices. A whole four songs from the mid-to-late 1966 sessions that gave us MoTM appeared on the series without making it to the album, while conversely three songs that did appear on the album were nowhere to be seen on NBC. That's pretty counter-productive, as you'd think promoting a song on national television without it being released anywhere is a waste of resources, especially when you consider all but one of the songs from the debut album were used in the show. That means only songs that were part of the show or strongly considered for it will be included, with us only subbing in the new songs where the more subpar tracks are removed. There's also no problem with adding songs that were later re-recorded for future albums, with those re-recordings simply being substituted by different songs further down the road. Without further ado, here's what our revamped sophomore album looks like:

She (More of the Monkees)
When Love Comes Knockin' (More of the Monkees)

Mary, Mary (More of the Monkees)

Words (More of the Monkees)

You Just May Be the One (The Monkees)

I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone (More of the Monkees)

-

Look Out (More of the Monkees)

The Kind of Girl I Could Love (More of the Monkees)

I'll Be Back Up on My Feet (More of the Monkees)

Sometime in the Morning (More of the Monkees)

Valleri (More of the Monkees)

I'm a Believer (More of the Monkees)

Bonus tracks:
Laugh (More of the Monkees)

Your Auntie Grizelda (More of the Monkees)

I Don't Think You Know Me (More of the Monkees)

The Monkees performing live for the first time in Honolulu, December 3, 1966

Side one starts as usual, with the 1-2-3 punch of "She", "When Love Comes Knockin' (At Your Door)" and "Mary, Mary". Of those, "She" and "Mary Mary" were both featured in a couple of episodes of the TV show, while "Knockin'" was meant to be featured in the "Monkees at the Movies" episode of the series, but was replaced at the last minute by "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You", which means it also qualifies by our parameters of following the TV show, or at least makes for a sensible exception, since it's a pretty good song. Speaking of which, "Words", which was featured in the TV show in its original version, replaces "Hold on Girl", which wasn't featured at all and frankly isn't very good. As for the fifth track, we could keep "Your Auntie Grizelda", as it was featured in the TV show a couple of times and even is a fan favorite. However, since in my opinion, it's a pretty mediocre novelty track, and Peter already has a lead vocal spot on the LP in "Words", I decided to replace it with a second Mike Nesmith lead vocal, the original version of "You Just May Be the One", which was even featured with more prominence on the show than "Grizelda" ever was. Finally, side one ends as it usually does, with "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone", one of the most prominently featured songs on the TV series, and the b-side to the "I'm a Believer" hit single, closing out the first half of the album.

Side two still opens with "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)" and "The Kind of Girl I Could Love", as the two songs were featured in episodes of the series. However, we use an extended mix of "Look Out", which brings its length to 2:50 due to an instrumental bridge and was the version of the song that was used in The Monkees, to begin with. Following that, we substitute the hideous "The Day We Fall in Love", which thankfully wasn't used in the show, with "I'll Be Back Upon My Feet, which was. And curiously enough, those two songs were written by the same two people! Who knows what accounted for the gap in quality between those two. The fantastic "Sometime in the Morning" still has the same spot as it did before, being used in a couple of episodes, and it's followed by Boyce & Hart's "Valleri", the greatest omission of the original album. The song was featured in the TV show, and was so popular in that, that DJs started taping the song straight off the TV and playing it on air, making it one of the few songs to become a radio hit without even being released! It replaces the very weak novelty track "Laugh", which despite being featured twice in the TV show, doesn't hold a candle to "Valleri". It's followed by album closer and hit single "I'm a Believer", which was featured more than five times on the series and is quite literally the only song you cannot remove from this album.

Clocking in at slightly shorter than 30 minutes, this revamped version of More of the Monkees presents a considerable upgrade in quality and consistency, feeling much more cohesive and whole. A duo that definitely benefits from these swaps is Boyce and Hart, who go from a measly two songs on the record to a more respectable four. Still a far cry from the seven they got on the debut, but already much better. This album also features three Nesmith songs, of which he sings two, which I would mirror in my alternate The Monkees album, by substituting "I'll Be True to You" with "All The King's Horses", and making three songs per album his standard quota. Besides the tracklist, the other main objection of the band with the album was its artwork, which we fix using a still photo from the "Find the Monkees" episode, to which we add their logo. We also get a second single off it, with "Valleri" backed by "Mary, Mary" getting released right after "I'm a Believer". Also, as bonus tracks, we have the aforementioned "Laugh" and "Your Auntie Grizelda", as well as "I Don't Think You Know Me", which was meant for the "One Man Shy" episode but left unused. It's a shame The Monkees were kept from releasing the best of what they had available due to external influence and band politics, since we would all have benefited if the best-selling album of 1967 was of better quality than it ended up being.

Sources:
- The Monkees - More of the Monkees

- The Monkees - The Monkees

- The Monkees First Season Episode Index

The Beatles - Everest (1970)

The Beatles' thirteenth and final album, Abbey Road, was released on September 26, 1969, through Apple Records. It was recorded between February and August of the same year, coming hot on the heels of the failed "Get Back" sessions of January, in which they tried to "strip down" all the complex overdubbed work they had done ever since they had stopped touring, and go back to a more natural, live sound, as inspired by The Band's Music from Big Pink and other, rootsier music coming in late 1968 as a reaction to psychedelia. Said sessions ended with tensions very high and its album and television special both postponed indefinitely, with George Harrison quitting the band and then returning a few days later, and a couple of attempts of putting an album together by engineer Glyn Johns in February without much success. During the sessions for Abbey Road, the group were notably on good spirits, leaving their differences and business issues aside and focusing on creating one more album for the band. Things worked out so well, in fact, that before John Lennon made his famous announcement of "wanting a divorce" in September 1969, the band had made tentative plans of a follow up to Abbey Road. And even after said announcement, things stayed quiet and unsure as to the future of the band up until the release of Paul's McCartney album, which announced the breakup for good.

That leaves us with the main question of this reconstruction: what if the Beatles had made one more album after Abbey Road? While this question has been asked incessantly for more than 50 years now, we can make this old debate more interesting by adding some rules to it, so as to not turns this into a "My favorite solo Beatles tracks" playlist all over again. Those rules are that all of the songs up for consideration have to have been written before The Beatles broke up in September 1969, and preferably intended for use by the group or seriously considered to be so.  Additionally, only recordings from the 1970/71 period will be considered, as going any further than that would mean deviating too considerably from the established Beatles sound, which would make for a jarring listening experience. As Abbey Road before it, Everest would be produced by George Martin, engineered by Geoff Emerick, and recorded during the time period of January 1970 to April 1970, which was spent working on the finishing touches to Let it Be. Imagining such a record had already been released in May 1969, as originally planned, this frees up the early months of 1970 and gives the band the need for new product to fulfill the beginning of their new contract with Capitol. That gives the band yet another reason to go into the studio, which is always a good thing, isn't it?

We can also establish the format we will be following with the album. Given Lennon's dissatisfaction with the Abbey Road medley and the tendency the band had to not repeat themselves, this would probably be simply a collection of standalone songs, the normal 14 tracks of a Beatles record divided into something like 5 John, 5 Paul, 3 George, and 1 Ringo, as was the case with Revolver way back in 1966. With that, George again gets the most songs he's ever gotten in a single LP, especially considering Ringo's song was basically ghostwritten by him anyway. We'll use most of the songs John and Paul had available, since they tended to record or release almost everything they wrote, and they each have five spots to fill, which means only George will face any serious scrutiny as to what will be included. He had about 15 songs in the can at this point, which means we'll have to select the three which were the most seriously considered or rehearsed by the band. No easy task, especially considering the quality of his material, but we've got some songs that are clear forerunners in this, such as "All Things Must Pass" or "Let it Down", which were actually rehearsed very seriously by the band during the Get Back sessions. Thankfully for Ringo, he actually had a song he was working on, which means he will get a lead vocal spot as well. With that, let's move on and take a look at the tracklist:

Gimme Some Truth (Imagine)

All Things Must Pass (All Things Must Pass)

Every Night (McCartney)

Jealous Guy (Imagine)

Teddy Boy (McCartney)

Look at Me (Plastic Ono Band)

Isn't it a Pity? (All Things Must Pass)

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Another Day (RAM)

Let it Down (All Things Must Pass)

Oh Yoko! (Imagine)

Junk (McCartney)

Oh My Love (Imagine)

It Don't Come Easy (Ringo)

The Back Seat of My Car (RAM)

Download link:
The Beatles - Everest (1970)

Paul and George at the last Beatles recording session, January 3rd, 1970

We can start off with the closest we'll get to an actual Beatles song in this reconstruction, "Gimme Some Truth", begun during the January 1969 Get Back sessions. With lyrical contributions from Paul and slide guitar by George, it features 3/4 of the group, the most we'll be getting here. It is followed by George's "All Things Must Pass", written on Thanksgiving 1968 at Dyan and The Band's Woodstock home. Rehearsed extensively during the Get Back sessions, it's probably one of the easiest inclusions we will be making here. Another result of the January 1969 Twickenham rehearsals, comes Paul's "Every Night", a more stripped-down song than the two that came before it. Following that, are three songs that date from their March 1968 trip to Rishikesh, India. The first is John's "Jealous Guy", first written as "Child of Nature", then rehearsed during the Get Back sessions and finally reworked for the Imagine album. The second is Paul's "Teddy Boy", which Paul had been pressing the band to record for quite some time. They had evaded it for three albums, but I think they would have had to record it this time around. The third is John's "Look at Me", a solo John recording that wouldn't be out of place in the White Album. Following is Version Two of "Isn't It a Pity", the oldest song on the album, that George had been pushing on the band since 1966, and I would hope that he finally got it into an album.

Opening side two is "Another Day", a product from the January 1969 Get Back sessions and a number one single for Paul. It's followed by the alternate Take 1 of George's "Let it Down", written alongside "All Things Must Pass" in Thanksgiving 1968 and rehearsed during the January 1969 sessions. The choice of an early take is due to the less bombastic arrangement used in it, more closely matching the way the Beatles rehearsed it. It's followed by the latest and probably most controversial inclusion into the album, May 1969's "Oh Yoko!". While some (including myself) would rationally steer clear of a song that was so overtly about her, this is 100% a song John would have pushed onto the others, much like "The Ballad of John and Yoko". It's followed by the last of our Rishikesh numbers, Paul's great "Junk", which again would've fit into the White Album quite easily. It's followed by another more somber number, John's "Oh My Love", featuring George on lead guitar. It was written in December 1968 alongside "Don't Let Me Down", and why it wasn't used on Let it Be is beyond me. It's followed by Ringo's lead vocal, "It Don't Come Easy", begun right after the White Album was released and finished with George's help. Closing off the album is Paul's "The Back Seat of My Car", one of the many piano ballads he wrote during the Get Back sessions, being in my opinion the best of the bunch.

Clocking in at 48-minutes with two same-length sides, Everest is the same length as Abbey Road, even though it's a pretty long record by the time's standards. And when considered on a song-by-song basis, it's honestly a stronger record than Abbey Road, only losing when it comes to cohesiveness, for obvious reasons. It's also a pretty somber, subdued album, pretty heavy on ballads and light on happier, poppier material, which makes sense considering the psychological state the band was in at the time. Once again, George absolutely steals the show with his songs, absolutely deserving the extra song he got here, and once again probably writing what probably are the best songs on the album. As for a single off the album, I could see them releasing a "Jealous Guy"/"Another Day" double A-side single, much like "Come Together"/"Something" before it, and it being a pretty big hit. Maybe even a non-album single consisting of "Instant Karma!"/"Maybe I'm Amazed", two fantastic songs that break the rules of our reconstruction but were already written by February 1970. Since all of these songs are leftovers, it's only fair that we use a leftover title for Abbey Road, inspired by the brand of cigarette engineer Geoff Emerick smoked. This collection only goes to show that The Beatles were too soon gone, and had at least one album left in them, even with all the turmoil that went on around them at the time.

Sources:

Paul McCartney - McCartney

John Lennon - Imagine

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass

Paul and Linda McCartney - RAM

John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band

Ringo Starr - Ringo

The Monkees - Changes (1968)

The Monkees started shooting their debut feature film at Columbia Pictures Studios in February 1968. Under the working titles Changes and Untitled, the movie represented a seismic shift from the beloved TV series the band had gained recognition for. Not wanting to simply make a ninety-minute version of an episode, both the band and creators Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider consciously tried to make a movie much more controversial and experimental than what had been seen during the last two years on NBC. The band, Rafelson, and actor and screenwriter Jack Nicholson (yes, that Jack Nicholson!) held a retreat in December 1967 in Ojai, California, where the six of them brainstormed and came up with ideas for the film. Nicholson then took the ideas created during this retreat and used them as a basis for his screenplay, a chaotic, psychedelic sequence of seemingly unrelated mini-plots portraying the band as stuck on an endless loop of not having control over their own lives and being kept "in a box", both literally and figuratively, with the band trying and failing many times to escape and have their freedom. By May 1968, filming was complete, and the movie, which at various points during production was named either Untitled, creatively enough, or Changes, was retitled HEAD, after the target audience for the film. It was a movie that set out to destroy the band's manufactured public image and either destroy them completely in the process or have them reborn as countercultural icons and serious artists.

The movie flopped, as it was too far out for the teenybopper audience, and they had too much of a teenybopper reputation to be taken seriously by the far-out, hip crowd who the movie was meant for. This means they managed to please neither their old fanbase nor those who The Monkees hoped would be their new fanbase, trying to make the transition from pop idols to serious musicians. With that, the iconoclast leanings of the movie's plot (if you can call it that) can be seen as a means for Nicholson, Schneider, and Nicholson to kill the Monkees, as an ironic sendoff to their manufactured image and constraining nature, as the concept had reached its theoretical peak. However, confusing plot and controversial themes aside, one of the undisputed highlights of the movie was its soundtrack. The six songs and one link track featured in the movie ranked up as some of the best things the Monkees ever did, and remain a cult classic and deeply beloved by fans to this day. However, when the time came to release the music, the decision was made to feature only those seven tracks, with orchestral scores by Ken Thorne, sound effects, and film dialogue thrown into the sequence seemingly at random and with little thought, by Jack Nicholson of all people. With the flop of the movie and the sheer weirdness of the way the soundtrack album was presented, the album was a flop as well, charting at a dismal #45 on the Billboard albums chart, this from a band who had never had a record chart lower than #3 before.

That leaves us with the question: What if HEAD was a full-length album instead of just a soundtrack? And in order to answer that, we will have to look to their biggest inspiration: The Beatles. On their two soundtrack albums, they had music from the film on side one, as well as other songs and singles on side two to round out the record. That means we need to find six or seven songs that wouldn't sound out of place with the greatness of these film songs and could complement them well. To do so, we will only be including songs that weren't featured in any other Monkee album or were left unreleased at the time, for the very simple reason that their late discography is a mess. That has the added benefit of this rejigged version of HEAD being able to simply slot into your current Monkees collection without any repeated songs or conflicts, which is a good thing. As for other rules, anything from November 1967 to August 1968 is fair game, as the songs on side one were culled from the same time period. I just probably won't use any leftovers from Mike's June 1968 Nashville sessions, as to me they feel like something else entirely and wouldn't fit in well, and none of Davy's self-written songs will be used either, even though there are plenty of them. Frankly, I don't particularly love any of his attempts at songwriting from this period, and they don't fit in great with the weirder side of the soundtrack, which is a pretty important factor here. With all of those parameters out of the way, here's what our expanded HEAD looks like:

Porpoise Song (Head)

Ditty Diego - War Chant (Head)
Circle Sky (Head)
Can You Dig It? (Head)
Daddy's Song (Head)
As We Go Along (Head)
Do I Have to Do This All Over Again (Head)

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Look Down (Missing Links, Vol. 3)
Nine Times Blue (Missing Links)
Rosemarie (Missing Links)
My Share of the Sidewalk (Missing Links)
Carlisle Wheeling (Missing Links)
It's Nice to Be With You (Music Box)
D.W. Washburn (Music Box)

Tork, Jones, Nesmith, and Jones on the set of the film Head, April 1968.

Starting off our soundtrack, we have all seven songs featured in the film in their regular studio versions. Even though I was tempted to include the longer single version of "Porpoise Song", the fact that this was the version featured in the movie, and the side was already pretty long (for Monkees standards, that is) as it was, I decided against it. I also decided against using the live "Circle Sky", as the studio version sounds much more in tune with the other six. When these songs are put together on one side with no sound effects or Ken Thorne scores to break the flow, they really sound amazing, the Monkees in their psychedelic pop peak. That degree of quality only serves to make our job harder, having to put together another seven outtakes that measure up to these great songs. That doesn't mean this collection of songs is without its flaws though, and it's those we will be trying to address when expanding this to a full album. Those include the fact that Mike Nesmith and Davy Jones are severely underrepresented on the soundtrack, with only one vocal each. It's no surprise that Micky dominates the album, but we need to increase the other two's share on side two in order for things not to get too lopsided. Meanwhile, with two songwriting credits and one lead vocal, this is the most representation Peter Tork had ever gotten in a Monkees album, which means we don't have to worry about representing him on side two in any way. With that, we know all that we have to fix or add on side two, and all that's left is song selection.

We can start things off with the obvious additions, both sides of their 1968 non-album single of "D.W. Washburn" and "It's Nice to Be With You". Even though they're definitely not hit material, they're both pretty good songs, and the former would work pretty well as an ironic sendoff to the album. Looking at the outtakes from the Birds, the Bees, and the Monkees sessions, there are only three Mike Nesmith-written tracks that weren't included in a period album: "Carlisle Wheeling", "Nine Times Blue" and "My Share of the Sidewalk", with the latter being sung by Davy. With that, our job in song selection has just gotten considerably easier. All three can be included, with the psych-country of "Carlisle Wheeling" fitting in very well with the rest of the album, and "My Share of the Sidewalk" managing to solve both the lack of Mike and the lack of Davy simultaneously. Pretty impressive! "Nine Times Blue" is a bit too country-ish to fit with the rest of the material, but it's such a great song that it'd be criminal to leave it in the vaults, warranting its inclusion. We can also add Davy-sung "Look Down", giving Carole King her third songwriting credit on the album, and Micky's own "Rosemarie", a nice psychedelic oddity that fits in well with the rest of the material. With that, we end up with five Micky leads, four Davy leads, three Mike leads, one Peter lead, and a group lead vocal on the acapella "Ditty Diego" link track, making for a much more balanced record and fixing many of the issues I previously pointed out.

With two sides clocking in at about 19 minutes each, we have our first 14-track album from them since Headquarters, which will be renamed Changes, after one of the movie's working titles. Also tying in with that name change is this fan-made cover I found while doing my research, emphasizing the psychedelic, trippy side of the album. As for quality, although the second side isn't quite as great as the first, it has more than its share of quality moments and great songs, with the two combined making a much stronger album than The Birds the Bees and the Monkees, almost managing to stand up to the same quality standards as Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, and Jones. This expansion would probably have helped the album's commercial chances as well, as the LP now has much more value for money than before, with double the songs. It still wouldn't make it to the top 10 or anything, but at least it now has a fighting chance among other records and isn't a glorified double-EP anymore. As for singles, "Porpoise Song" b/w "As We Go Along" is an amazing 7" and it's criminal that it didn't chart higher than it did, which means it's still released in this timeline. The demise of the Monkees was still inevitable, and was probably even intended, but this version of the album would allow the band to have a much more dignified farewell by releasing one of the strongest albums of 1968, a psychedelic pop classic that needed to be complete to really be able to demonstrate the changes the band was going through.

Sources:

The Monkees - HEAD
The Monkees - Music Box

The Monkees - Missing Links
The Monkees - Missing Links, Vol. 3