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''The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees'' is the fifth studio album by The Monkees released in April 1968. It was the first Monkees album not to reach Billboard's number one, peaking at number three, and eventually selling over a million copies. ==History== Despite the band's hardships in 1968 (their television series was canceled; their first motion picture project, ''Head'', failed at the box office; and in December, Peter Tork left the group), ''The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees'' proved to be another successful album, yielding the group's sixth million-selling single in "Valleri" and yet another number one in "Daydream Believer," written by former Kingston Trio member John Stewart. Coincidentally, both songs had been holdovers from previous albums: "Valleri" had originally been recorded more than a year prior for the TV show (the version on this album is a new production) and "Daydream Believer" had been recorded for their previous album, ''Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.''. "Tapioca Tundra," an experimental piece of poetry put to music by Nesmith, charted well as the B-side to "Valleri" and reached #34. After gaining complete artistic control over their musical direction and being allowed to play instruments on their own records in early 1967, the success of ''Headquarters'' and ''Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.'' began to somewhat rebuff the critics who viewed The Monkees as a band of talentless individuals who were simply lucky enough to gain recognition through their "manufactured" origins. The desire and focus, however, to remain as a complete band unit in the studio quickly evaporated after the ''Pisces'' album, when each individual band member began to produce his own sessions with his own selected studio musicians, often at entirely different studios around the Los Angeles area. An agreement was made to label all finished efforts as "Produced by The Monkees," but in reality, beyond a few exceptions, most of the recordings featured on ''The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees'' revert to the recording process of the first two albums (fewer group dynamics), except now each band member was fully in charge of the sessions. Chip Douglas, producer of The Monkees' previous two albums, fully expected to continue as the band's representative in the studio, but found the individual Monkees more interested in exploring their diverse musical backgrounds with their own friends and associates rather than relying on Douglas as the central figure. Jones' Broadway rock, Michael Nesmith's country and western leanings and psychedelic experiments, and the rock and soul of Micky Dolenz made for a diverse album. Unfortunately for Peter Tork, several of his compositions were considered for release on ''Birds'', however they were all rejected for reasons unknown. Aside from playing piano on "Daydream Believer," he did not participate in the making of the record. Veteran Monkees tunesmiths Boyce and Hart returned to the fold to contribute the psychedelic "P.O. Box 9847," as well as a new version of the aforementioned "Valleri." The extremely rare U.S. mono album (COM-109) was released in a limited quantity, as mono albums were being phased out by 1968, and has become a highly sought item for its unique mixes that differ from the common stereo versions. Mono copies from Australia, India, Israel, Mexico and Puerto Rico are known to have the same mix as the USA. There may be others as well. Most countries' mono versions - including the UK's - feature a "fold-down" mix where the stereo channels are simply reduced to one monaural channel; basically a mono version of the stereo mix. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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