“I threw a party for John Lennon one night, and he sat there at the Moog for four hours making flying saucer sounds”: They set the boyband template, but also introduced the world to the synth

Monkees.

The Monkees occupy a curious place in the history of pop. In equal parts derided for setting the mold for the artificial boyband via their manufactured, television-based origins, and in other quarters celebrated for seizing control of their own narrative, and writing some genuinely life-affirming pop classics.

While some dubbed the Californian four-piece, the ‘Prefab Four’, many are likely unaware of a particularly innovative breakthrough they were responsible for.

Amazingly, the Monkees were the first pop group to include a synth - specifically a Moog Modular III - on record. The early Moog machine was brought in during the recording of their fourth studio album, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.

Multi-instrumentalists Micky Dolenz and Mike Nesmith incorporated high register noises and frequency-exploring synthetic expulsions atop the tightly constructed Daily Nightly.