I've thought so ever since MTV resurrected re-runs of The Monkees sitcom in the late 80s and introduced my generation to the music.
In short, "Pleasant Valley Sunday" is a commentary on post-World War II American suburbia, where everyone looks the same, sounds the same, has first-world problems, and is happy to wallow in their collective ignorance of the real outside world. In the bridge of the song, the lyrics lament how "creature comfort goals / they only numb my soul," and expresses a need for a change of point of view.
Now, compared to what The Beatles or Jimi Hendrix were doing in 1967, "Pleasant Valley Sunday" is tame stuff. (Although, there are nods to psychedelia--like the reverb-thick, echoey ending of the song, where producer Chip Douglas and recording engineer Hank Cicalo basically just started cranking every knob on the console to "11" to create the murky effect.) But for as poppy as the song is musically, the subject matter of the song is pretty subversive. It actually bites the very hand that fed The Monkees--i.e. suburbanite kids and their parents who were keeping the band's weekly TV show on the air and buying the band's records. It also signals the shift in their identity and mentality: they were a band with something to say and not just puppets for NBC and Colgems.
And, yes, by 1967 they were a band. The four had wrested a fair amount of control over their output from the studio honchos, and not only were they writing some of their own material, but they also finally were allowed to play on their own records. (Mike Nesmith plays that indelible lead guitar lick, and Peter Tork plays electric piano on the track, too.)
It's a great vocal from Dolenz, a great groove, but--in it's own small way--it's also trying to say something about our society. And that makes it a perennial favorite of mine.
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