This is over-crediting thing has become a real problem. I routinely go at it every few weeks with Monkees fans who repeatedly point to The Beach Boys as a band that "never played a note in the studio". Unfortunately this line of thinking is so pervasive online now that I don't see how it can become undone. Well...I guess with proper credits and some embarrassed apologies. We'll see.
Great post. This is interesting, and let me say from the outset that The Monkees' music has been one of my absolute favorites and biggest influences in playing and working in music in general. Beatles-Beach Boys-Monkees, it's the Big Three for me that I most often return to for pure enjoyment.
So - As much as has been written about The Monkees and how they fit into all of this, keep in mind that back in 1967 some would point to a Mike Nesmith interview where he essentially said "tell the world that we don't play on our records because damn it, we don't!" or something along those lines (don't have the quote in front of me).
Consider the time when that interview was given, it was during the power struggle with Don Kirshner over that very issue: The band wanted to play and choose their music that would appear on their releases, Kirshner in what is still one of the more bizarre axes ever ground in the music biz simply refused to allow this apart from a few Nesmith songs, and as a result Rafelson and Schneider eventually showed him the door. It was as if Kirshner had something personal against the notion of letting the guys play in the studio...thus, he was out.
As far as the opinions in the present day, I thought a lot of the actual history had replaced the mythology, but perhaps that isn't the case as much as I assumed. The Monkees music and their other media from the 60's have gotten more respect, they have gotten a revisiting from listeners, critics, and new audiences, and people generally seem to think they were better than the reputation of "plastic" would suggest.
And with that, consider a few things I sometimes forget even as a major, die-hard fan and follower of the band:
They were actors cast to play a band on a TV show. Simple as that, no secret. That borrows the Mike Nesmith line he's repeated often, the backlash against them as individuals would be like Star Trek fans criticizing Leonard Nimoy for not being a real Vulcan. The difference is that not only *were* they working musicians who had played gigs and released material prior to the Monkees, but they wanted to have a part in creating their own music. Whatever hangups Kirshner had against that, they were musicians who wanted some stake in what their names and photos were being used to sell.
Consider: The first two albums, are there credits anywhere on them that "lied" in terms of who played the parts? No. It was standard practice to not credit musicians who had played the studio parts on album liners. Nesmith's "blow the lid off" interview brought it to the fore, though, and it did become an issue and cause a backlash which you can see in vintage music papers and fan mags. Ultimately, though, people still watched the show and bought the records, especially in 67-68.
Now look at their third and fourth albums, Headquarters and "Pisces, Aquarius...": Their first four albums appeared in a time frame of just over one year...four Monkees albums in a year, how many bands today have that? Anyway, on the third album which appeared less than a year after the TV show premiered, the band members are playing the majority of instruments on the album, and the liner notes on that album in '67 list their credits. Pisces Aquarius, from Fall 1967, same thing: The band members are playing on that album, supplemented by session guys like Chip Douglas, Fast Eddie Hoh, etc.
Question: What is difficult to understand or comprehend about that? They're playing prominently on those recordings, they're credited as doing so...if anyone still suggests the "they didn't play their instruments" B.S. 45+ years later, I'd tell them flat out they are foolish or lazy, or both.
Fans in '67 knew this, it was printed on millions of albums that were sold that year. Fans who watched the TV show also saw two things: The finale episode of the first season was called "Monkees On Tour", and shows the band playing a live show. Yes, PLAYING a live show for thousands of screaming fans with actual guitars, a bass, and a drum set. And in a ragged kind of garage-y vibe, they played a really cool show. But the point is, they played instruments on stage.
In '67 the fans watching the show also saw a group interview which they used to cut into the end of the episodes when they first ran. One of them has the band being asked about playing their own instruments, and Nesmith (again) took the lead: "I'm about to go on in front of 15,000 people, if I don't play my own instrument I'm in trouble."
Anyone from 1967 on knew the story, yes Kirshner kept them out of the studio chairs but everything recorded from February 1967 onward had the band playing instruments, and it created some of the best AM pop of the year, from Pleasant Valley Sunday, to Daydream Believer, to The Girl I Knew Somewhere, to Randy Scouse Git, and the terrific album cuts.
It is another case, perhaps, of some people simply wanting to claim ignorance in order to express an opinion, which in this case might be backing up a claim that they don't like the Monkees without saying it outright, so the old standard "they didn't play their own instruments" continues to be repeated, and continues to be complete nonsense and has been known to be nonsense since they did start playing in the studio in 1967.
Yet in the past several years, there were the three surviving band members reuniting and playing hits and deep album cuts live on stage, playing their own instruments, singing their own songs, and basically playing to packed venues and getting very positive reviews...and big ticket sales. Interesting, right?
There is a difference between being ignorant of history and wishing to rewrite history...
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I say that, and posted all of that, because my bigger point was that anyone interested or anyone with, let's say, some measure of common sense could have looked at the Headquarters or Pisces Aquarius album covers waaaayyyy back in 1967 and read the musician credits. They would have seen the actual band who apparently didn't play their instruments actually had played their instruments! When Pleasant Valley Sunday started playing on 'MCA or KHJ or 'RKO in summer 1967, that hot guitar riff was actually played by a real-life Monkee! Imagine that! 
