The 1966 Monkees hit Robert Wyatt defended against music snobbery: “I don’t feel the need for any hierarchies”
While the career of Robert Wyatt has always been characterised by progressive songwriting and challenging experimentation, rarely seeing him fully enter the mainstream, the career of The Monkees couldn’t really be more the opposite.
Now, while comparing the two might seem like the difference between day and night, with them having existed in vastly different spheres for much of their lives and not ever experiencing any crossover, the fact that one is frequently seen as high-brow compared to the low-culture categorisation of its opponent does beg a few important questions.
As far as fans of Wyatt and his contemporaries might be concerned, The Monkees were commercial drivel, not making anything of their own and pandering to the lowest common denominator by performing accessible material that had been deliberately manufactured to appeal to a young and impressionable audience. When compared with what Wyatt has done, both in his own solo career and as a member of Soft Machine, the work of The Monkees might seem simple, cheap, and lacking any creative originality.
But does that mean that all pop music is worthless and isn’t deserving of praise? Sure, all of the songs might have straightforward structures, be played in a 4/4 metre and have lyrics that don’t hide any deeper meaning beneath the surface, but when does a good song stop being a good song just because of its simplicity?
It ought to be noted that despite being artificially engineered for success and simply used as a front for the songs of others, The Monkees did possess talents of their own, with Michael Nesmith having a publishing deal for his songs to be used prior to joining the band, and all the members having been competent musicians despite having stooges stand in for them on record.
While those around Wyatt may have sneered at the rudimentary nature of the pop group, Wyatt himself was more than happy to fight their corner despite not being their greatest fan. Acknowledging that they were simply catering to different audiences, Wyatt recalled in a 2014 interview with Uncut that although his friends questioned whether ‘I’m A Believer’ was a great piece of pop songwriting upon its release, he had a rather different perspective.
“In one exhibition, Peter Blake had a lot of paintings by monkeys,” Wyatt explained, humorously, the situation with an example involving the homophonous creatures, “Somebody said to him, ‘Oh, they’re not very good paintings’. He said, ‘Well, they’re pretty good for monkeys!’ So for a Monkees song, it’s a pretty good song.”
He continued, dismissing the snobbery that often comes when comparing pop music with anything that is slightly more unconventional. “I don’t feel the need for any hierarchies, and there was a slight statement I was making about that,” Wyatt insisted, “Not being in a group, you can do one-off things, have a particular band for a particular thing. And for ‘I’m A Believer’ it was the right group.”
For anyone who prefers their music to be a little more cerebral, ‘I’m A Believer’ certainly has the potential to disappoint, but when taken at face value for what it is, which is a pop song deliberately crafted to sell records, then you can’t fault it.
