Long Title: Looking for the Good Times; Examining the Monkees' Songs, One by One

While it was nice as a monkee fan to have an opinion on each monkee track it was quite obvious from the introduction page that, mark was a big Nesmith fan and basically hated anything Davy did. So you have a biased opinion to start with. The other author seemed to tread on eggshells and seemed to bow down to the others opinion. At the end of the day good idea for a book but would of worked if done in a constructive way with such unbiased opinions.

Ok book

I was very impressed with this book and the details it goes into for each song, even a lot of the lesser known Monkees songs. Also, having two authors is great when it comes to opinions on the music, as they don't always agree with the others thoughts on the music. I also love that each song states what The Monkees played and sang on for each track. I highly recommend this book for any fan of The Monkees. Well done!

I was looking for an interesting book on The Monkees, well, actually, their music. This book is exactly what I wanted. It has every song The Monkees recorded and their opinion on each song. Brings back a lot of memories. In fact, I think I will read the book............again.

Is it proper to review the reviewers? I think so...and in this case I present "Long Title: Looking for the Good Times", a song by song analysis presented by writers Michael A. Ventrella and Mark Arnold. This book was published late last year and is a thorough look at every Monkee song that has seen...or almost seen...the light of day over the past 52 years. While any Monkee fan pretty well knows that the Monkee bible is Andrew Sandoval's marvelous work, this book dispenses with most of those details to get to the point: Is the song good or not, and in both cases, why? Like any book of this nature the reader must enter with an open mind in that the authors are brutally honest in their like/dislike of the music. I felt like I was sitting down with a couple of friends and kicking thoughts and ideas around. M & M don't always agree and neither do I, but that is the fun. Beyond the always interesting reviews, each song has recording dates, which Monkee(s) is/are involved in the process and (most importantly) what albums the various mixes of the music can be found (i.e. the Rhino Handmade editions). With so many CD releases containing several versions of these tunes this reference simplifies things if the reader wants to check on a title in mono, stereo, etc. Each album is examined as well. The book also kicks off with a history of the group to set the table. The cover art by Scott Shaw is the best I've seen on a Monkee book, and inside there is a reference that names all the characters depicted (and there are a bunch!). There are plenty of rare past and present pictures throughout (sadly only in black and white, but a minor issue). As stated, I certainly don't agree with all of the views here (I would love to sit down with Michael over coffee to discuss the merits of "She"...but I don't drink the stuff so ditch that idea) but the book is an interesting and enlightning journey. I strongly recommend it as essential to any Monkee collection!