Rolling Stone makes it official: The Monkees to release first holiday album, "Christmas Party," on October 12 (UPDATED X2)

9/20/2018

(Album cover art by Michael Allred)

Rolling Stone: The Monkees Made a Christmas Album With Rivers Cuomo and R.E.M.’s Peter Buck

Two years after the triumph of Good Times!, The Monkees are set to release Christmas Party, their first-ever collection of holiday music. The album, produced by Adam Schlesinger (who also oversaw Good Times!), will feature newly recorded versions of classic Christmas songs including "Silver Bells," "The Christmas Song," and "Wonderful Christmastime" along with brand new songs written for the group by Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo ("What Would Santa Do"), Andy Partridge of XTC ("Unwrap You At Christmas"), R.E.M.'s Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey of The Minus 5 ("Christmas Party"), and Schlesinger with novelist Michael Chabon ("House of Broken Gingerbread"). Covers of Wizzard's yuletide classic "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day" and Big Star's "Jesus Christ" will also be heard on the album.

Christmas Party includes new vocals by Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork, plus the late Davy Jones’ voice - taken from vintage recordings - also appears on two songs. It will be available for purchase on compact disc and as a digital download on October 12. A vinyl edition is in the works but will not be issued until early 2019. The first single, set for an October release, will be Andy Partridge's "Unwrap You At Christmas," and a lyric video will be produced to promote the track.

Along with producer Schlesinger, Cuomo and Partridge are returning to the Monkees fold as they were the songwriters responsible for the two lead singles from Good Times!, "She Makes Me Laugh" and "You Bring the Summer." Two of Michael Nesmith's sons also acted as co-producers (Christian on "The Christmas Song" and Jonathan on "Snowfall").

Davy's tracks on Christmas Party were originally recorded in 1991 with former Monkees producer Chip Douglas. Schlesinger worked with the master tapes as given to him by Douglas, creating new instrumentation around Davy's vocals.

Target will carry an exclusive bonus tracks edition of Christmas Party on October 19 (a week after the release of the standard edition), featuring two additional songs:

1) "Ríu Chíu" (group version as heard on the 1967 "Christmas Show" episode with improved audio from its previous CD appearance on the 2007 deluxe edition of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.)

2) "Christmas Is My Time Of Year" (the one-off 1976 Christmas single recorded by Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, and Peter Tork and produced by Chip Douglas - this will mark its first official appearance on a Monkees album)

Here is the official track listing of Christmas Party, and you can listen to the LP's executive producer John Hughes (of Rhino Records) and Monkees archivist Andrew Sandoval breakdown each song on the latest episode of Zilch.

"Unwrap You At Christmas" (Lead vocal: Micky)
"What Would Santa Do" (Lead vocal: Micky)
"Mele Kalikimaka" (Lead vocal: Davy)
"House Of Broken Gingerbread" (Lead vocal: Micky)
"The Christmas Song" (Lead vocal: Michael)
"Christmas Party" (Lead vocal: Micky)
"Jesus Christ" (Lead vocal: Micky)
"I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day" (Lead vocal: Micky)
"Silver Bells" (Lead vocal: Davy)
"Wonderful Christmastime" (Lead vocal: Micky)
"Snowfall" (Lead vocal: Michael)
"Angels We Have Heard On High" (Lead vocal: Peter)
"Merry Christmas, Baby" (Lead vocal: Micky)

Stay tuned to The Monkees Live Almanac for all the latest news and information surrounding Christmas Party and more!

Pre-order The Monkees' "Christmas Party" from Amazon US

Pre-order The Monkees' "Christmas Party" from Amazon UK

Pre-order the exclusive Target bonus tracks edition of "Christmas Party"

18 Comments

Tom link

9/20/2018 21:58:45

Wow, a Christmas album with cool credentials, very impressed they're doing Big Star's "Jesus Christ".

MonkeesBandFan

9/21/2018 15:30:36

It is wonderful to finally have a “real” Monkees Xmas album. (There,of course, has been the fan-created amalgamation from various group and solo projects that has been circulating for years). Even better - and frankly, amazing- is to just have more new Monkee music of any kind after all these years.

Listening to the Zilch podcast and the hearing the good folks at Rhino describe the creation format as analogous to the Birds and Bees album, the creation of ‘new” Monkees works (post original incarnation - i.e., since the 80s) has followed an remarkably similar pattern to the 60s. From my perspective:

Then and Now (‘86) - the 3 new tracks - Similar to the Monkees
Pool It (‘87) - similar to More of the Monkees
Justus (‘96) - similar to Headquarters
Good Times (‘16) - similar to Pisces
And now Christmas Party - similar to Birds and Bees

And when I say similar, I mean the creation process as in the various levels of involvement of the band members (the continuum from singing to songwriting and instrumentation to producing)

Given that the Rhino folks suggested “never say never” to more new Monkees music, looking forward s to Instant Replay mark II (although I’ll take a Headquarters III or Pisces III preferably!)

Ken Mills link

9/21/2018 16:54:10

Excellent post! Thank you for listening. You summed it up very well, it is kind of spooky in a way.

Wade

9/21/2018 18:59:49

I think this is awesome! Taken aback at first, but the more I think about it, just awesome. Wouldn't it be wonderful (yet, for ANYONE, unlikely) to have a new standard come from this album?

Jan Swanton

9/22/2018 08:01:35

Target do not shipz to the U.K.! Is there any comany that will sell the bonus tracks album and ship internationally (to U.K.)?

Jeff

9/22/2018 12:40:46

I have three questions (and apologies if these have been answered elsewhere):

1. Will this contain the original '76 single mix of Christmas Is My Time Of Year, or the later CD remix with the overdubbed and horrible electronic drums? (Why anyone would want to cover up Eddie Hoe's excellent drumming is beyond me.) Andrew brought this up in the Zilch interview but didn't seem to confirm either way.

2. Do we know if any of the guys contributed instrumentally to any of the tracks? I assume Peter will have on his track but was wondering about Mike/Micky.

3. Regarding the Davy tracks pulled from his Chip Douglas produced Christmas album, some resources indicate that album was recorded in the 70s and others indicate the 90s. Production-wise it sounds like it was done in the 90s but was wondering if anyone could confirm.

Frank Jason

9/23/2018 23:39:26

The Davy stuff first came out in 1991 on a tape cassette called “Its Christmas Time Again “. It was one of Davy’s semi-private release ‘Dpne Press’ cassettes, catalog number 4099 91.12.

Monkees Live Almanac

9/26/2018 17:06:16

Hi Jeff,

I'm working on confirmation on the mix of "Christmas Is My Time of Year."

No word on instrumental contributions.

I asked Andrew Sandoval about Davy's songs and he noted his cassette tape with them on it - dated 1991.

9/26/2018 21:52:55

Thanks to both of you for this information!

9/28/2018 16:13:29

Jeff,

I can confirm that Peter is playing on "Angels We Have Heard on High."

Andrew Sandoval told me that he is fairly certain that Chip Douglas provided Rhino with his later remix of "Christmas Is My Time of Year."

Also - "Riu Chiu" is not from Andrew's film master but something Rhino pulled off of the Blu-ray set.

And for those who asked: the CD will come in a standard jewel case and not a digipak.

Irma

9/23/2018 09:56:13

The cd is already sold out on target.com and they don't expect it to ever come back in stock, not even in stores: three people told me this. Really disappointed in target, they should have stocked more copies for us Monkees lovers. After all, it had only been posted online for a couple days.

9/23/2018 18:33:46

Hi Irma,

Keep an eye out for the future availability of online pre-orders via Target as John Hughes of Rhino Records is looking into the situation!

Don

9/27/2018 22:40:05

Irma, Pre-orders are back for Target.com. I just ordered mine (9:40pm CT, 9/27/2018). Hope you are able to get one too!

9/24/2018 20:31:08

Those are the wrong people to listen to, Irma. You need to get your news straight from the Rhino's mouth, aka John Hughes. Hughes has the news that soothes.

Lulu

9/25/2018 14:41:32

Is it coming in LP format (or did i miss a statement on this?)? I hv a 13 yr old Monkees fan who is into vinyl - would mk awesome gift.

9/25/2018 15:22:01

Hi Lulu,

Yes, the album will be issued on vinyl but not until 2019.

Brian

9/27/2018 12:21:28

I must say, I've listened to Wizzard's "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day" and Big Star's "Jesus Christ" and found them to be boring. Already became familiar with "Snowfall" last year and it's fine the first time, but gets old quick. McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime" is so banal that it can only be taken in small doses.. I'm familiar with Bing Crosby's "Mele Kalikimaka" which is one of the bottom tier Christmas songs he sang..... "White Christmas" is fine, but overdone. "Merry Christmas Baby" isn't overdone, so is my best hope. Honestly, this album isn't looking too good to me. I hope that the original songs are considerably better

Paul Gongola

10/3/2018 10:37:52

Any idea when "Unwrap You at Christmas" will be premiered? I know they mentioned a preview in October. I'm excited!

It will be a bit of a bummer if "Christmas is My Time of Year" is the 86 remix, as that one has already been on CD. I prefer the original mix. Unless it's a completely new remix altogether, then that could be cool.

Rolling Stone makes it official: The Monkees to release first holiday album, "Christmas Party," on October 12 (UPDATED X2)

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Rolling Stone makes it official: The Monkees to release first holiday album, "Christmas Party," on October 12 (UPDATED X2)

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Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart returns