Black Monk Time

Last updated
Black Monk Time
Blackmonktime.jpg
Studio album by
Monks
ReleasedMarch 1966
RecordedNovember 1965 in Cologne, West Germany
Genre
Length29:48
Label Polydor
Producer Jimmy Bowien
Monks chronology
Black Monk Time
(1966)		 Five Upstart Americans
(1999)
Singles from Black Monk Time
  1. "Complication" / "Oh, How to Do Now"
    Released: May 1965

Black Monk Time is the only studio album by German-based American garage rock band The Monks, released in March 1966 through Polydor Records. The album's subversive style and blunt lyrical content were radical for its time, and today it is considered an important landmark in the development of punk rock.

Contents

Background

The album was produced by Jimmy Bowien and recorded in November 1965 in Cologne, West Germany. "Complication" b/w "Oh, How to Do Now" was released as a single to promote the album. Like the album, it failed to garner commercial success. The single was re-issued in 2009 by Play Loud! Productions.

Black Monk Time was not officially released in the United States until 1994, as Polydor Records deemed the music too experimental for an American audience and too blunt in its condemnation of the Vietnam War at the time. [3]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [4]
Robert Christgau Five Pointed Star Solid.svg [5]
The Observer Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [6]
Paste favorable [7]
Pitchfork Media 9.2/10 [8]
Prefix9.0/10 [9]
The Quietus very favorable [10]
Spin favorable [11]
The Daily Telegraph Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svg [12]

The album was initially met with a muted critical and commercial reception, but has since become widely critically acclaimed and is now viewed as an important proto-punk album. In a retrospective review for About.com, Anthony Carew called it "possibly the first punk record" and "one of the 'missing links' of alternative music history", also citing it as an influence on the German krautrock movement. [1] Andrew Perry wrote in The Daily Telegraph in 2009: "Listening to it now, finally, in full, remastered glory, it's hard to imagine how this primitive and often nightmarish music could have been allowed to be made at that particular time and place. [...] It may not be to every taste but, lurching according to its own sublimely clueless logic, it has a purity and heedlessness which can never be repeated." [12] According to Len Comaratta of Uncut , "there's really nothing that can dull the impact of hearing the Monks' music for the first time." [13]

Accolades

Legacy and impact

Black Monk Time was later described by Julian Cope as a "lost classic" in his 1995 book Krautrocksampler . [18] Cope writes:

NO-ONE ever came up with a whole album of such dementia. The Monks' Black Monk Time is a gem born of isolation and the horrible deep-down knowledge that no-one is really listening to what you're saying. And the Monks took full artistic advantage of their lucky/unlucky position as American rockers in a country that was desperate for the real thing. They wrote songs that would have been horribly mutilated by arrangers and producers had they been back in America. But there was no need for them to clean up their act, as the Beatles and others had had to do on returning home, for there were no artistic constraints in a country that liked the sound of beat music but had no idea about its lyric content. [19]

In 2006 Play Loud! Productions released a Monks tribute album, Silver Monk Time , featuring 29 international bands (including the original Monks), in conjunction with the film Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback .

English post-punk band The Fall covered four of the album's songs: "I Hate You" and "Oh, How to Do Now" (as "Black Monk Theme Part I" and "Black Monk Theme Part II") on their 1990 album Extricate , "Shut Up" on their 1994 album Middle Class Revolt , and "Higgle-Dy Piggle-Dy" on Silver Monk Time.

"I Hate You" was featured in the 1998 film The Big Lebowski .

"Monk Time" was featured in a 2000 Powerade advertisement. [20]

Beastie Boys, Jack White of The White Stripes, and Colin Greenwood of Radiohead have praised the album. [9]

"Boys Are Boys and Girls Are Choice" was featured in a commercial for the Apple iPhone in 2017. [21]

"We Do Wie Du" is featured in the 2017 film Logan Lucky . [22]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Gary Burger, Larry Clark, Dave Day, Roger Johnston and Eddie Shaw

Side A
No.TitleLength
1."Monk Time"2:42
2."Shut Up"3:11
3."Boys Are Boys and Girls Are Choice"1:23
4."Higgle-Dy-Piggle-Dy"2:28
5."I Hate You"3:32
6."Oh, How to Do Now"3:14
Side B
No.TitleLength
1."Complication"2:21
2."We Do Wie Du"2:09
3."Drunken Maria"1:44
4."Love Came Tumblin' Down"2:28
5."Blast Off!"2:12
6."That's My Girl"2:24
1994 Repertoire Records reissue bonus tracks
No.TitleLength
13."I Can't Get Over You"2:41
14."Cuckoo"2:42
15."Love Can Tame the Wild"2:38
16."He Went Down to the Sea"3:03
1997 Infinite Zero Archive/American Recordings reissue bonus tracks
No.TitleLength
13."I Can't Get Over You"2:41
14."Cuckoo"2:42
15."Love Can Tame the Wild"2:38
16."He Went Down to the Sea"3:03
17."Monk Chant" (Live on Beat Club, 1966)1:59
18."I Hate You" (Demo version)3:24
19."Oh, How to Do Now" (Demo version)2:39
2004 Retribution Records reissue bonus tracks
No.TitleLength
13."I Can't Get Over You"2:41
14."Cuckoo"2:42
15."Monk Chant" (Live on Beat-Club, 1966)1:59
2009 Light in the Attic Records reissue bonus tracks
No.TitleLength
13."I Can't Get Over You"2:41
14."Cuckoo"2:42
15."Love Can Tame the Wild"2:38
16."He Went Down to the Sea"3:03
17."Pretty Suzanne" (previously unreleased)3:55
18."Monk Chant" (Live on Beat-Club, 1966)1:59
2011 International Polydor Production reissue bonus tracks
No.TitleLength
13."I Can't Get Over You"2:41
14."Cuckoo"2:42
15."Love Can Tame the Wild"2:38
16."He Went Down to the Sea"3:03

Personnel

Release history

RegionDateTitleLabelFormatCatalog
GermanyMay 1966Black Monk TimeInternational Polydor ProductionStereo LP249 900
Germany1979Black Monk TimePolydorStereo LP2417 129
GermanyJanuary 19, 1994Black Monk Time Repertoire Records CDREP 4438-WP
USAFebruary 11, 1997Black Monk Time [a] Infinite ZeroCD9 43112-2
USAOctober 12, 2004Monk TimeRetribution RecordsCD105523
GermanyMarch 13, 2009Black Monk Time [a] PolydorLP/CD1785 208 [LP], 177 1723 [CD]
USAApril 14, 2009Black Monk Time [a] Light in the Attic Records LP/CDLITA 042
USA2011Black TimeInternational Polydor ProductionLP249900

^a This release includes extensive liner notes, including interviews and photographs

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References

  1. 1 2 Anthony Carew. "Definitive Albums: The Monks 'Black Monk Time' (1965)". About.com . Archived from the original on 20 March 2016. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
  2. ↑ Pitulah (February 7, 2015). "Record Bin: How the Monks predicted the rise of punk on "Black Monk Time"". NOOGAtoday. Retrieved July 4, 2019. [The Monks] released one of the first punk rock records ever recorded.
  3. ↑ Robertson, Tom. "Obscure 1960s rockers the Monks make comeback". mprnews.org. Retrieved August 4, 2016.
  4. ↑ Mark Deming. "Black Monk Time". Allmusic . Retrieved 11 February 2012.
  5. ↑ Robert Christgau. "The Monks". robertchristgau.com. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
  6. ↑ Peter Kimpton (15 March 2009). "Rock review: The Monks, Black Monk Time". guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
  7. ↑ Stephen M. Deusner (14 April 2009). "The Monks: Black Monk Time". pastemagazine.com. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
  8. ↑ Joe Tangari (20 April 2009). "The Monks: Black Monk Time". Pitchfork Media . Retrieved 11 February 2012.
  9. 1 2 Dan Nishimoto (12 June 2009). "Review". Prefix. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
  10. ↑ Alex Ogg (23 April 2009). "The Monks". The Quietus . Retrieved 11 February 2012.
  11. ↑ Spin . May 2007.{{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  12. 1 2 Andrew Perry (23 April 2009). "The Monks, Black Monk Time: pop CD of the week". telegraph.co.uk. Archived from the original on 26 April 2009. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
  13. ↑ Len Comaratta (4 September 2010). "Monks - Black Monk Time". Uncut.co.uk. Archived from the original on 26 February 2014. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
  14. ↑ Robert Dimery; Michael Lydon (7 February 2006). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: Revised and Updated Edition. Universe. ISBN   0-7893-1371-5.
  15. ↑ Keenan, David. "The Best Albums Ever... Honest". Sunday Herald . Archived from the original on October 13, 2004. Retrieved February 13, 2024.
  16. ↑ "The Top 100 Alternative Albums of the 1960s - SPIN" . Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  17. ↑ "The 200 Best Albums of the 1960s". Pitchfork . August 22, 2017.
  18. ↑ Cope 1995, p. 6.
  19. ↑ Cope 1995, p. 7.
  20. ↑ "Powerade "Bus Ride"". Adweek . 13 January 2008. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
  21. ↑ "- YouTube". YouTube .{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)[ dead link ]
  22. ↑ "Logan Lucky Original Soundtrack Album". Amazon.

Bibliography

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