Details About Lost Monkees Compilation Emerge

In 1969, The Monkees released their first official compilation album on Colgems Records, The Monkees Greatest Hits. The record featured all of the group's top-ten singles and tracks from their first five albums, all released before The Monkees took a commercial nose-dive in 1968 with the cancellation of their TV series and the release of the avant garde flop Head. Aside from some curious omissions—such as the top-twenty hit "D.W. Washburn", the high-charting B-sides "Words" and "Tapioca Tundra", and the ever-popular TV theme song—The Monkees Greatest Hits largely played it safe, while its photo-devoid cover was downright unimaginative.

Ed Reilly, author of the book The Monkees: A Manufactured Image (originally published in 1987; now out of print), has recently uncovered a wealth of information about Colgems' plans to release a far stranger collection of songs prior to settling on the Greatest Hits disc that hit shops in June, 1969. Reilly has actually found original album cover art for a record that was to be called Golden Hits. The cover was designed by Nick Chohlis, the artist who designed the cover of The Monkees Present and whose name was misspelled as "Cholis" on the original edition of that record, as well as Rhino's mid-eighties reissue. A good friend of Micky Dolenz, Chohlis conceived an interesting 3-D design with illustrations similar to those that would adorn Present. Having recently departed the group, Peter Tork is not among the illustrations Chohlis created for Golden Hits even though Tork's musicianship is featured on several tracks that would have been included on it. That complicated cover would be the first hurdle to the release of Golden Hits since Colgems was reluctant to produce another unconventional jacket after the machine-jamming mylar-covered sleeves that adorned the Head soundtrack. 

The other hurdle was likely the track selection, which contained just two of the Monkees' big hits. The only other single included was "Tear Drop City", which failed to crack the top fifty. The rest of the tracks favor the group's own compositions, particularly ones from the recently released Instant Replay (an album completely unrepresented on The Monkees Greatest Hits) and limit the contributions of the most popular Monkee, Davy Jones, to just two tracks. 

Side One
Daydream Believer
She
You and I
Just a Game
Salesman
You Told Me

Side Two
Circle Sky
Zor and Zam
While I Cry
Mary, Mary
Tear Drop City
I'm a Believer

While Golden Hits never saw release, it was mentioned in the April 12, 1969, issue of Billboard Magazine. An album with the same titled issued the following year on Colgems featured a totally different track line up.

See Chohlis's artwork and read the complete story of the original version of The Monkees Golden Hits, as well as other unissued editions of Monkees records, on Ed Reilly's site Monkees45s.net here.