2000 Great Songs #1508: Circle Sky
As referenced previously, The Monkees ' 1968 soundtrack album Head is a fascinating piece of work. It came after the cancellation of their show and after their incredible (and underappreciated) run of fantastic singles and albums had largely come to an end. And the film it supported was a pretty big flop, though it's gained steam over the years as a late-night college dorm stoner classic--dated and too deliberately surreal but still an incredible time capsule. And the soundtrack album is a little thin--more like a 5 or 6-song EP padded out with film dialogue. Given all that, it's no surprise it's not the most well-known album in their catalog. But it's also incredible, that handful of songs among their best, an impressive potpourri that blends pop, psychedelia, and Americana into as respectable a stew as any of their more critically acclaimed peers had managed. (And one can compensate for its short running time by appending it with other like-minded psych-era track...
