Quoted from vid1900:The Monkees were amazing pop, but the trick was that under that sugary glaze, they were totally subversive.
Last Train To Clarksville was a song about a guy going off to die in Vietnam.
Kids were singing along to it, and their prowar parents were totally unaware.
Absolutely! And their Psych dabbling was subversive too because it was probably perceived as fairly “safe” by the olds, but was actually good enough to have been a “gateway drug” and nudge at least some of the kids into the REALLY lysergic stuff like Love, 13th Floor Elevators, or Barrett-era Floyd.
A sad loss to the musical world, unfortunately the legends will all be gone sooner rather than later. 
In addition to Psych, they were also early punks (they just didn’t realize it at the time). I mean, I certainly don’t recall any Beatles tracks getting this treatment:
