Black Monk Time

Black Monk Time is the debut studio album by Germany-based American rock band The Monks. It was released in March 1966 through Polydor Records and was the only album released during the band's original incarnation. The album's subversive style and lyrical content was radical for its time and today is considered an important landmark in the development of punk rock.

Background

The album was produced by Jimmy Bowien and recorded March 1965 in Cologne, 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.

Legacy

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	^[1]
Robert Christgau	^[2]
The Observer	^[3]
Paste	favorable^[4]
Pitchfork Media	9.2/10^[5]
Prefix	9.0/10^[6]
The Quietus	very favorable^[7]
Spin	favorable^[8]
The Daily Telegraph	^[9]

The album was initially released to a muted critical and commercial reception, but has since gone on to become widely critically acclaimed and is now viewed as an important protopunk album. Anthony Carew in a restrospective review for About.com called it "possibly the first punk record, and is the obvious birthplace of krautrock" and "one of the 'missing links' of alternative music history".^[10] The Daily Telegraph wrote, "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." ^[9] Uncut wrote, "there's really nothing that can dull the impact of hearing the Monks' music for the first time."^[11]

Accolades

It was included in the 2005 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
It was included in the Sunday Herald's "The 103 Best Albums Ever, Honest" list in 2001.^[12]
It was included in UK magazine The Word' "Hidden Treasure: Great Underrated Albums of Our Time" list in 2005.^[12]

Impact

Black Monk Time was described in the mid-1990s by Julian Cope of The Teardrop Explodes as a "lost classic".^[13] Of the album's raw style, and the context of its production, 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 your [sic] 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.^[14]

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

English post-punk band The Fall has covered four of the album's songs: "I Hate You" and "Oh How to Do Now" on their 1990 album Extricate, "Shut Up" on their 1994 album Middle Class Revolt, and "Higgle-Dy Piggle-Dy" on the 2006 Play Loud! Productions compilation Silver Monk Time.

"Monk Time" was featured in a 2000 Powerade advertisement.^[15]

Beastie Boys, Jack White of The White Stripes, and Colin Greenwood of Radiohead have praised the album.^[6]

Track listing

All songs written and composed by The Monks.

No.	Title	Length
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
7.	"Complication"	2:21
8.	"We Do Wie Du"	2:09
9.	"Drunken Maria"	1:44
10.	"Love Came Tumblin' Down"	2:28
11.	"Blast Off!"	2:12
12.	"That's My Girl"	2:24

1990 Israphon reissue bonus tracks
No.	Title	Length
13.	"Cuckoo"	2:42
14.	"I Can't Get Over You"	2:41

1994 Repertoire Records reissue bonus tracks
No.	Title	Length
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

1996 Infinite Zero Archive/American Recordings reissue bonus tracks
No.	Title	Length
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.	Title	Length
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.	Title	Length
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

Personnel

Gary Burger – vocals, guitar
Larry Clark – vocals, organ
Roger Johnston – vocals, drums
Eddie Shaw – vocals, bass guitar
Dave Day – vocals, electric banjo

References

↑ Mark Deming. "Black Monk Time". Allmusic. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
↑ Robert Christgau. "The Monks". robertchristgau.com. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
↑ Peter Kimpton (15 March 2009). "Rock review: The Monks, Black Monk Time". guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
↑ Stephen M. Deusner (14 April 2009). "The Monks: Black Monk Time". pastemagazine.com. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
↑ Joe Tangari (20 April 2009). "The Monks: Black Monk Time". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
↑ 6.0 6.1 Dan Nishimoto (12 June 2009). "Review". Prefix. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
↑ Alex Ogg (23 April 2009). "The Monks". The Quietus. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
↑ Spin. May 2007.
↑ 9.0 9.1 Andrew Perry (23 April 2009). "The Monks, Black Monk Time: pop CD of the week". telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
↑ Anthony Carew. "Definitive Albums: The Monks 'Black Monk Time' (1965)". About.com. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
↑ Len Comaratta (4 September 2010). "Monks - Black Monk Time". Uncut.co.uk. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
↑ 12.0 12.1 "Monks Black Monk Time". acclaimedmusic.net. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
↑ Cope 1995, p. 6.
↑ Cope 1995, p. 7.
↑ "Powerade "Bus Ride"". Adweek. 13 January 2008. Retrieved 11 February 2012.

Bibliography

Cope, Julian (1 January 1995). Krautrocksampler: One Head's Guide to the Great Kosmische Musik - 1968 Onwards (3rd ed.). Head Heritage. ISBN 0-9526719-1-3. OCLC 44822513.

External links

Black Monk Time (Adobe Flash) at Radio3Net (streamed copy where licensed)
Black Monk Time at Discogs (list of releases)

v t e The Monks

Albums	1965 demos Black Monk Time (1966) Let's Start a Beat - Live from Cavestomp (2002)

Singles	"There She Walks" b/w "Boys Are Boys" (1964, as the 5 Torquays) "Complication" b/w "Oh, How To Do Now" (1965) "Cuckoo" b/w "I Can't Get Over You" (1966) "Love Can Tame the Wild" b/w "He Went Down to the Sea" (1967) "Pretty Suzanne" b/w "Monk Time" (2009)

Film	Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback (2006)

Tributes	Silver Monk Time (2006) "Monk Time" b/w "Higgle-dy Piggle-dy" (2006, single from Silver Monk Time) "Drunken Maria" b/w "Monk Chant" (2009, single from Silver Monk Time)

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