Video: 'Changes' (first 12 clips constitute original album release)

(Saturday, November 8, 1986) — Changes, the ninth and final studio album during the group’s original run (1965-1970), finally debuted on today’s Billboard 200 albums chart (at #174), sixteen years after its original release on June 30, 1970.

The album’s belated chart appearance came amid a major Monkees revival in 1986, sparked by MTV’s heavy airing of reruns of the group’s television series.

Changes was issued after Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork exited the band, leaving only Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones to fulfill the recording contract they had signed in the mid-1960s.

Jones later stated that Changes was his least favorite Monkees effort, going so far as to comment in the 1994 Rhino Records CD version’s liner notes that the album “was Jeff Barry and Andy Kim doing an Andy Kim album,” adding that he had terrible memories of the recording sessions.

“I was quite happy to do it as long as somebody wanted to record me. It was simple as that.” Dolenz added, “By that time, it was pretty obvious that the Monkees were over. Davy and I were still getting along, but we were mainly fulfilling a contractual obligation to a record company — that’s what Changes is all about.”

Changes was the made-for-TV band’s last new album for Colgems Records and the group’s last album of all new material until Pool It!, released in 1987.