The Monkees Members of the Monkees, Nesmith in particular, cite the soundtrack album as one of the crowning achievements of the band. Tensions within the group were increasing. Peter Tork, citing exhaustion, quit by buying out the last four years of his Monkees contract at $150,000 per year, equal to about $ per year today. This was shortly after the band's Far East tour in December 1968, after completing work on their 1969 NBC television special, "33⅓ Revolutions Per Monkee", which rehashed many of the ideas from "Head", only with the Monkees playing a strangely second-string role. In the DVD commentary for
The Monkees After the end of the 50th Anniversary Tour, Dolenz, Tork, and Nesmith spent 2017 engaging in solo activities. In 2018, Nesmith toured with a revived version of the First National Band and stated that he was in negotiations with promoters to tour again with Dolenz later in the summer. On February 20, the tour was announced as "The Monkees Present: The Mike and Micky Show", their first tour as a duo; Tork declined to participate due to wanting to focus on his new solo album. Though the pair played Monkees music and promoted the tour under the Monkees banner, Nesmith