VIDEORGY, THE SEQUEL: Brown’s first hit, “Homecoming...

VIDEORGY, THE SEQUEL: Brown’s first hit, “Homecoming Queen” (which is also available on the new record), originally appeared on a Rhino Records EP. Brown has moved on to a major label, but Rhino has just released a new album from the Monkees--and is promoting it with a video of the debut single, “Heart and Soul.” No one has been a bigger supporter of the Monkees than MTV, which probably deserves credit for reviving the band’s career by showcasing its old TV shows and touting its reunion concerts. So it comes as a major surprise to see MTV roundly ignoring the band’s new clip. Why the cold shoulder? Could it have anything to do with the Monkees’ last-minute cancellation of a performance at a MTV/NFL tailgate party at the Super Bowl earlier this year?

Yes and no, says MTV chief Lee Masters. “We were very upset at the time, and if someone went to the Monkees people and said ‘you screwed us, now we’re going to screw you, by not playing your new clip’ then we’re at fault. But over the past year we’ve learned to turn the other cheek. Dealing with as many artists and labels as we do, not a week goes by when either someone’s mad at us or vice-versa. But it doesn’t affect the way we do business at all. We don’t hold grudges. The fact is that while we really got a kick out of doing the whole Monkees revival, we aren’t playing the clip because we just don’t feel the band works for us anymore. They just don’t have any legs. The whole phenomenon was a novelty--and for us, it’s over.”