Twenty-First Century Schitzoid Man

I've been working two separate tracks lately to build up the RPL music collection. I've been buying Billboard chart toppers by working from the present backwards and I've also been purchasing Number One hits starting from about 1963 and working my way foreword. (With a few side trips thrown in for good measure.) I guess that means I will meet myself sometime around 1984. Last year about this time I was building the Rock Collection by digging my way through 'critically acclaimed', 'classics' and the 'fathers of...' kind of stuff. While this approach built a fairly solid popular collection I missed a lot. As always what is popular is not always critically acclaimed and a good example of that was the Monkees. What really surprised me was that the Monkees, those TV show guys, had three Billboard Number One hits. Last Train to Clarksville, I'm a Believer, and Daydream Believer all had twelve weeks or more as the Number One Hit. It's not all that surprising when you consider that their earlier songs were written by the best songwriters and studio musicians NBC could hire. The studio band that recorded for the Monkees performed songs written by Carole King, Neil Diamond, and Neil Sedaka, while Glen Cambell and Leon Russell were just two of the many musicians that performed on their albums. Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith did have musical backgrounds and by the end of Monkees run on television they were performing their own work but having the best the Studio could afford, plus being on a hit TV show did give their musical careers a little bit of a boost.

CLASSIC NUMBER ONE HITS ORDERED IN APRIL.

Rubber Soul: The Beatles (I missed this one last year)
Little Deuce Coupe/All Summer Long: Beach Boys
Pet Sounds: Beach Boys
Surfer Girl/Shut Down Vol. 2: Beach Boys
Stop in the Name of Love: Supremes
If you can Believe your Eyes & Ears: Mamas & the Papas
Beat Goes On: The best of Sonny & Cher
Anthology: 50th Anniversary: Four Tops
Very Best of Herman's Hermits
20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection: The very best of the Temptations Vol 1
20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection: The very best of the Temptations Vol 2
Very Best of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
And Then...Along Came The Association
The Very Best of Loving Spoonful
Greatest Hits: The Monkees
The Essential Sly and The Family Stone
Very Best of Fifth Dimension
Bookends: Simon and Garfunkel
American Woman: Guess Who
All Time Greatest hits of Roy Orbison