Rhino Factoids: The Monkees Bounce Back Into the Charts

30 years ago today, the first four albums by the Monkees – The Monkees, More of the Monkees, Headquarters, and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. – all reentered the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart, definitively confirming that Monkeemania was back in a big way.

The resurgence of Monkees fandom wasn’t something that happened overnight, although it can definitely be credited to a particular event: MTV’s “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” when the network aired a marathon of The Monkees on February 23, 1986. It was only a few months later that Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, and Peter Tork announced that they would be doing a 20th anniversary tour, and it was around the same time frame that Nickelodeon began airing The Monkees on a daily basis.

With their music in the air on a more regular basis than it had been since their initial heyday, younger fans started heading to their friendly neighborhood record stores and picking up copies of the group’s albums. As a result, the aforementioned foursome found their way back into the charts for the first time in a long time, cementing The Monkees as a multi-generational band. Given the success of Good Times! this year, it’s clear that the cement is still rock solid even now.