The Monkees (album) scheduled around the work done by Boyce, Hart, and Keller. Famously, the Monkees were not permitted by their management to function as a working band for this album, with the group's contributions limited almost entirely to vocal tracks. Eight of the original LP's twelve tracks feature one lone Monkee singing lead vocal over instrumentation and backing vocals recorded entirely by a group of session musicians which varies from song to song. Other tracks feature multiple Monkees singing over session players; only on the two tracks produced by Michael Nesmith does a Monkee (Peter Tork) get to play an instrument (guitar).
The Monkees television network, NBC and Columbia had a major hit on their hands. The first long-playing album, "The Monkees", was released a month later, spent 13 weeks at #1 and stayed on the Billboard charts for 78 weeks. Twenty years later, during their reunion, it would spend another 24 weeks on the Billboard charts. This first album is also notable, in addition to containing their debut single, for containing band member Nesmith's first foray into country-rock, "Papa Gene's Blues", which mixed country, rock and Latin flavors. In assigning instruments for purposes of the television show, a dilemma arose as to which