I know I’ve written about anniversaries before but since today is yet another anniversary of one of my favorite albums I thought I might just post a little tribute.
Fifty-one years ago today the album “The Birds, Bees & The Monkees” dropped into record stores (in the U.S.) on the Colgems label with it’s lovely multi-colored trippy cover in all it’s flower power glory (see above).
This was the fifth long-player by The Monkees and the last one to be released while their NBC TV show was still on the air. Because of that TV exposure, and two Top Ten hit singles (“Daydream Believer” and “Valleri”) included on the album, “The Birds, Bees & The Monkees” hit the No. 3 spot on Billboard’s Hot 200 Lp chart and eventually sold over one million copies.
I’ve done posts about this album before so today I thought I’d share a few photos of 45’s that came from the “The Birds, Bees & The Monkees” album, some of which are fairly uncommon these days.
From the photos above you can see the original U.S. Colgems 45 (with picture sleeve) as well as a fairly rare 1972 45 reissue of “Daydream Believer” on the baby blue Arista label as well as a rare 45 featuring an unreleased mix of “Daydream Believer” without horns and other sweetening.
This cool 45 was only available on Rhino Records Handmade Website as a bonus for buying their CD Deluxe reissues of “Headquarters” and “Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, & Jones Ltd” and features a groovy cardboard sleeve that mimics the design of Colgems 1960’s releases.
I have no idea where I got the blue Arista 45 of “Daydream Believer” but I’ve never seen another one and I had forgotten I even owned this until a couple of weeks ago when I stumbled across it in a box lol. Nice though.
The other 45 release I’m showing is one of my all-time favorite releases from “The Birds, Bees & The Monkees”, a Mexican EP that features true mono mixes of “Valleri”, “Tapioca Tundra”, “Auntie’s Municipal Court” and “P.O. Box 9847”.
(Note: the true mono mix of “The Birds, Bees & The Monkees” is probably the rarest Monkees record out there as it was released in 1968 when mono was being phased out and very few copies were pressed. I don’t even own one myself and have never seen one for sale. The mono mix was made available to other countries thus the Mexican EP above which features the rare true mono mixes.)
I’ve done a post about the Mexican EP before but since it’s such a fun release and sounds so good in true mono that I thought it was worth repeating!
Anyway, just a fun little celebration of “The Birds, Bees & The Monkees” and its music on its 51st birthday.
You can go back to your regularly scheduled blogcasts now.
Over and out and until next time … “What number is this? 7A perhaps?
Records, CDs and Music: 