Tag: reviews

The Monkees at 60 – “The A’s, The B’s & The Monkees” Set Celebrates The Monkees 60th with a Stellar Collection of All Their Singles from 1966-1970

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Happy New Year’s Eve!

This upcoming year of 2026 not only celebrates my own 60th birthday, two weeks from today in fact, but for Monkees fans it’s also the 60th anniversary of the “The Monkees” both as a TV show as well as a rock group.

Hard to believe, pardon the pun for those who know, that sixty years have passed since the wacky foursome of Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones, Peter Tork and Mike Nesmith first romped around television screens and blared through radios all over the world.

My own personal introduction to the group came first with the music as my older brother, nine years older than me, had purchased the first four Monkees albums which I proceeded to make into frisbees by playing them over and over as a toddler (see photo below of me in 1968 listening to “More of the Monkees” on a vintage Magnavox stereo my parents owned).

I’m sure I watched the TV show in it’s first run along with my brother but I don’t remember it as well as I remember vividly listening to the first three Monkees albums on the floor as a toddler dancing and singling along to an old portable record player.

I do remember the show more from the Saturday morning reruns as well as collecting Monkees records from the back of cereal boxes circa 1969/1970 or so but by this time I was truly a Monkees maniac and had all of their albums (there is old 8mm silent film of me at my forth birthday party in 1970 opening both “Instant Replay” and “The Monkees Greatest Hits” Colgems albums) if you can believe it.

Okay, that leads us to today.

I just received the 2 CD set called “The A’s, The B’s & The Monkees” (love the “Birds and Bees” reference) which I ordered from the Monkees.com Website. It wasn’t supposed to be out until the end of January so I was quite pleased to see it so early and since I am off today I sat down and gave both CDs a listen and took a look through the groovy booklet.

I was really curious to hear this set as it was advertised online as needle drops of all The Monkees 1966-1970 singles featuring the original 45 mono and stereo mixes of both the A and B sides (thus the title). Of course that seemed really odd yet intriguing to me. I’m all for an authentic sounding collection of their singles and though it may be redundant I think it’s a cool idea.

Well after listening to the set I’m pleasantly surprised. Both CDs do seem to contain all of the original mono and stereo 45 mixes (The “Tear Drop City” mix is the original stereo 45 version not the promo version) and to my surprise they sound excellent!

They also sound like there are from the original master tapes as they are wonderful sounding – rich, warm and not fatiguing to listen to at all.

If any of these mixes is a mono album mix and not the true mono 45 mix I didn’t notice on first listen. While that would be unfortunate I must say everything sounds so good I could live with it. The second disc is especially a good listen and fun to hear all the b-sides together; a very strong disc with some of The Monkees best songs.

The booklet says this set was mastered by Bernie Grundman with digital mastering by Dave Schultz with Bill Inglot and I must say it’s probably my favorite sounding hits collection of Monkees material in my collection – it’s that good.

(Note: a 2 Lp vinyl version of this set comes out in January and will be available to buy at independent record stores)

I know a lot of Monkees fans online are ho hum about this set as they have all the material already but if you want this stuff with the original 45 mixes sounding better than ever then you might want to give this set a listen.

Of course being a physical media guy I love a new physical Monkees release and I hope Rhino Records does some other interesting releases for the 60th anniversary throughout 2026 – we shall see.

Both CDs are mono from tracks 1-8 and then stereo for tracks 9-12 and I believe all the correct mono 45 versions – I could be wrong but I think they are all correct. And if some of these came from need drops I would truly be amazed as they sound so damn good.

Anyway, there you go. I have included photos of the 2 CD set above and below. 

I hope you have a wonderful New Year’s Day tomorrow and truly wonderful 2026 as well.

See you soon here at this blog and hopefully they’ll be more Monkees releases to celebrate soon.

A Pile of Partridge 2025 – Come on, Get Happy!

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Well I’m back after a long absence of a couple months or so. Since it was winter and dreary I really wasn’t in the mood to do much so I took a bit of an extended break.

Luckily in the last three weeks or so I’ve had a chance to search antique and record stores far and wide and have found three particularly wonderful finds.

It just so happens that they all are fairly rare Partridge Family finds, two of which I never found in the wild, and all three in lovely minty condition!

Here’s what I found:

* “The World of The Partridge Family” – this is probably the rarest of The Partridge Family albums. It’s a two record set released in 1974 at the end of the television series. Not only did it look unplayed but was in the shrink wrap with a hype sticker!

* “The Partridge Family At Home with Their Greatest Hits” – this particular pressing I didn’t even know existed. I searched online after I found it and was surprised to learn that Arista records must have released this in the ’80s sometime. Another stone mint record that actually sounds better than the Bell Records pressing from 1972.

* “The Partridge Family Album” – this is a pressing of their first album from the UK. I have another copy of this UK pressing but it’s fairly beat up so I was glad to find that this one doesn’t look like it’s ever been played, truly near mint condition.

How do they sound you ask?

Well I have to say I was pleasantly surprised that all three of these albums sound superb. The biggest surprise of all of them was “The World of The Partridge Family” which is probably the best sounding Partridge Family vinyl I own.

Not only was the two-disc set mint but this pressing is truly wonderful with super quiet vinyl (a rarity for Bell Records from the 1970s I assure you) and very dynamic with a lot of bass and a clarity that isn’t present on most Partridge Family Bell Records pressings.

Original Partridge Family albums are notoriously hit or miss sound wise but this set just shines and may be my favorite sounding Partridge Family album – truly superb from start to finish and a nice song selection to boot.

The Arista pressing of “The Partridge Family At Home with Their Greatest Hits” was also surprising as it bests the original 1972 pressing though it’s not quite as dynamic sounding as “The World of The Partridge Family”. Lovely to have and another great listen. Odd to see the Arista label on a Partridge Family vinyl release but nice.

I guess the biggest surprise was how great the UK pressing of “The Partridge Family Album” sounds! UK pressings of Partridge Family albums were most likely made from a tape a generation away from the ones that made their first US pressings but this particular first UK pressing is dynamic sounding with a lot of nice bass and a truly wonderful quality pressing that was silent and very warm sounding. 

I have to say of all the pressings I own of this album this may be my favorite. I have other UK pressings of Partridge Family albums that don’t sound nearly this good.

The other wonderful thing about these albums is that all three of them were each under $5. Yes, you heard right, $15 for the three of them!!! I found them at an obscure antique mall that weirdly enough had a lot of foreign pressings and oddities.

I’m guessing that most people don’t think that Partridge Family albums have much value but “The World of The Partridge Family”  is especially tough to locate and on top of that near impossible to find still with the shrink wrap with a hype sticker and in near mint condition. This album didn’t particularly sell well at the time so they aren’t as plentiful as their regular albums which are fairly easy to locate.

And again I never even knew the Arista pressing of “The Partridge Family At Home with Their Greatest Hits” even existed so I was ecstatic to find it. I’m guessing this was reissued sometime in the 1980s but I don’t know the exact date or how long it was available. I have never seen one before but online I do see that it is out there but I’m guessing it’s fairly rare.

I can honestly say that all three of these albums are probably my favorite Partridge Family find ever while antiquing. Cheap, rare and wonderful – which is the best way to find them.

A great way to start 2025, collecting wise at least.

Well that’s all for now. I have a few other finds I’m going to be posting shortly so I just wanted to add this to the list of truly wonderful record discoveries found in some out of the way and obscure places.

Until next time I hope everything is well in your world and hopefully we’ll all be able to survive 2025 intact LOL.

See you soon!

 

Sealed for Your Protection? – Beatles Cassettes Are New Again, Even in the 21st Century

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They say that everything old is new again and I guess in the current musical landscape that includes the evergreen format of the cassette tape.

You heard right, cassette tape.

Who would have thought that in the 2020’s they’d be a market for cassette tapes but apparently that’s the case. It seems that cassette tapes are a hit with a younger crowd and I do continue to see them in used record stores and antique malls more and more recently so someone must be buying them.

Interesting really.

And to top it off this new enthusiasm for cassettes includes Beatles and solo Beatles cassette tapes – now we’re talking my language.

As for me, back in the day in the 1980s, I LOVED the cassette format. I enjoyed making mix tapes as well as tapes of my rarer records that I didn’t want to play that much. I had a ton of Maxell quality blank cassettes that I filled with various vinyl as well as practically every episode of the radio show “The Lost Lennon Tapes” from the late 1980s/early nineties and to this day those cassettes still sound pretty good.

As for store bought cassette tapes those we more hit or miss for me. Some sounded good while others sounded muffled and lousy. I never really bought that many but I still managed to snag a few here and there.

On a decent cassette player these tapes could sound pretty good as long as you never over used the Dolby settings. I found a little hiss was preferable to the blanket sound of using the Dolby settings so I generally stayed away from it.

Now of course these days cassettes are just a curio for me. I still have quite a few sealed cassettes from the eighties and nineties, a relic of an older age, and that’s the way I left it – until recently.

A couple of years ago Paul McCartney started to produce limited cassette releases  of his recent material and of course the collector in me won out and I bought a couple. I still have a really nice high end cassette player from the late 1980s so in the back of my mind I thought why not give them a try and play them; of course low these several months later they sit unopened.

The most recent cassette to cross my path was last years release of The Beatles final single “Now and Then”.  Again it was more a collector fever that hit me than a true need for the format but there you go  another unopened cassette in my collection.

My favorite recent cassette, and the first new cassette I’d bought in a couple of decades, was the cool cassette for Record Store Day 2017 that Paul McCartney issued of three cassette demos he wrote and performed with Elvis Costello – “I Don’t Want to Confess”, “Shallow Grave” and “Mistress and Maid” – recorded in the “Flowers in the Dirt” era from the late 1980s.

I just love McCartney’s handwritten titles on the cover and the whole vibe of one of his cassette demos issued in the format it was recorded on. Someday I plan to actually play the darn thing but for now it will stay sealed in pristine condition until I get the time to really have a good listen.

Speaking of sealed cassettes, I have a small collection of sealed cassettes that for one reason or another I never opened to play. To tell you the truth I’m guessing I picked these up cheap as mementos of a bygone era as I have these on CD so I’m sure I never intended to listen to them, I honestly can’t remember.

Too much tape under the bridge.

I was actually surprised when I found them in a box and had a lot of fun looking at them as they were a surprise to me that I even owned them! It’s like looking at your own store and being surprised what was on the shelf.

Anyway since I found them I thought it would make a nice blog post for folks to take a gander at some of these groovy old (and new) Beatles/solo Beatles sealed cassettes (see photos above and below).

That’s all for now. More coming soon.

Until next time be healthy and well and I hope you’re making time to listen to an old cassette if you happen to have one. And if you do let me know how it sounds, I’d be curious to know.