More of the Monkees output, since this album and their debut, "The Monkees", featured them limited to just vocals with scattered instrumental contributions. Kirshner had a strict rule that the Monkees were to provide only vocals on his productions, though separate sessions produced by Michael Nesmith himself usually featured Peter Tork on guitar. "More of the Monkees" has Nesmith limited to one song as lead vocalist. Within weeks of the release of "More of the Monkees", Nesmith lobbied successfully with the group's creators, Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, for the Monkees to be allowed to play their instruments on future records, effectively giving the
The Monkees in my world, and his experience dwarfed my entertainer's life as a hippie, basket-passing folk singer on the Greenwich Village coffee house circuit. If anything, I suppose I was selected for the cast of 'The Monkees' TV show partly as a rough-hewn counterpart to David's sophistication. [...] the Monkees—the group now, not the TV series—took a lot of flack for being 'manufactured,' by which our critics meant that we hadn't grown up together, paying our dues, sleeping five to a room, trying to make it as had the Beatles and Rolling Stones. Furthermore, critics said, the Monkees' first albums—remember albums?—were