The Monkees: A Many Fractured Image

I purchased this book last October and finished reading it last night. I'm not a slow reader but I do get very little opportunity to read. I have many books on The Monkees, purchased at various times over the last 30 + years but this is quite different from the usual style. This gives a personal insight from the authors perspective, and as such, occasionally the viewpoint can be vastly different to that of the readers'. Nothing wrong with that though. I like the way the book is divided into chapters according to the song writers and sub-divided according to the sessions. This edition includes releases up to and including "Good Times" so obviously pre-dates "Christmas Party". As I have a lot of information regarding recording dates and other information, partly through the other books I have and partly from other sources such as the Internet, a lot of the information in this book was not new but it was nice to have it all in one place. There are no photos but this is not the sort of book you get for photos. Now to the downside. It would not be an exaggeration to say there are spelling and grammatical errors on nearly every page. Words are missing, incorrect words are used and it's a real distraction. In the preview given for this book, on page 3 it goes "For example, there was might be a series....". A shame about this because with a bit more care and possibly the application of a proof-reader, this could have been a 5-star book.

I didn't hold out huge hopes for this book but actually it's takes an interesting approach to understanding the monkees story. The most interesting part is Boyce and Harts tracks which appear on the tv show and should have made up the second album and how More of the Monkees was released without their knowledge. These tracks ended up re recorded over the remainder of the bands career. It's an unexpectedly good read, showing the intrigue and machinations behind a phenomenon in rock music. The first ever boy band

I did as the author suggested. I created all the playlists on my iPod that the author created for each chapter. I think there were only 4 songs that I didn't have in my collection. It's interesting how the iTunes version of the three Missing Links records are different than the ones Scot Livingston has. Some songs were not on my Missing Links albums, and some were on different volumes than what the author had. Also, my CD versions of Birds and the Bees and Headquarters had different bonus tracks. Other than that it all matched. So I read each chapter and listened to the songs at the same time. I suggest this is the best way to read the book as you can actually hear what Mr Livingston is talking about.OK.......The author did extensive research on each song and presented them in a novel and captivating way. Each chapter has songs grouped by the producers of the tracks and it's all in, roughly, chronological order. Therefore, the book starts off with "The Monkees and ends with "Justus". Of course one producer did not produce all the tracks on one album, so there is a little back and forth every now and then. This is a great way to listen to the catalogue of the Monkees. It gives you new insight into how and why things were done with the songs.This is really the authors opinions, based on facts, for each song and should be treated as such. For example Scot Livingston is not a big fan of "I'm A Believer", and his write up on that song reflects... REALLY reflects his obvious dislike. Personally for me, it is one of my top 3 Monkee songs and is WAY better than "Daydream Believer" the other Monkee hit with Believer in the title.But the knowledge and love of the music imparted by the author really comes through. It must have taken him a long time to gather all this info and it is presented in an easy to read and accessible style. I really loved this book.........( here it comes) but I have one gripe. The proof reading is atrocious. There are tons of sentences missing words, or sentences jumbled together. Lots of wrongly spelled words, or closely related words substituted for each other. For example 'whoever 'used instead of 'however'. It just makes this very quality scholarly book seem amateurish. I would have rated this book. 4.5 but had to take a half point off for the crappy proofreading. But I loved the book itself and recommend it to the Monkees fan.One more thing I noticed .....the Monkees song "Lady Jane " and the Paul McCartney song from Venus and Mars "Spirits of Ancient Egypt " are eerily similar. Lady Jane was recorded in 1970 and Paul's song in 1974. Check it out. Someone owes someone some cash I think.

This book is similar to another book titled "Monkee Music." Both books analyze the music that the Monkees put out and provide their own opinions. The difference is that the book by Livingston also separates the music by producer, which enables him to analyze the work of the particular producer. It had never occurred to me to organize the songs by producer and when you do so you begin to notice fascinating patterns, which are discussed in this book. I don't agree with all his opinions regarding the songs - in fact, some I disagree with strongly - but I very much enjoyed reading this book.

I am a geek tweaked to 11. "The Monkees: A Many Fractured Image" is a great read mainly because Scot Livingston tells you what he wants to tell you directly with no BS. There's no hype, no bombast, just a direct analysis of the songs and the players. I found it engaging and fun, listing to every song, sometimes out of order (but why not?). I have no idea where I would have ever found all this information in one place. Thanks Scot! Awesome.