--- description: A comeback for all the haters out there title: One Direction Four Album Release: Celebrate with a Monkees Fan Letter image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [History](/section/history/) ## History Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Read a Letter From the 1960s Version of a One Direction Fan  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Nov 17, 2014 12:00 PM CUT  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Nov 17, 2014 12:00 PM CUT They’re a group of young men who were brought together by television and went on to draw in legions of fans with their music. Today’s audiences will recognize in that description the band One Direction, the members of which met on _The X Factor_. But it’s also apt for The Monkees, the early boy band first created to be a fictional band on a sitcom. The similarities don’t stop there: 1D’s 2013 release of the album _Midnight Madness_ made them [the first group since the Monkees](http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/5812384/one-direction-scores-historic-third-no-1-album-on-billboard-200-chart "undefined") to have each of their first three albums reach _Billboard_‘s top spot. And both groups have had to deal with [criticism](http://perezhilton.com/2012-04-11-paul-mccartney-says-do-not-compare-one-direction-to-the-beatles "undefined") for being (a) manufactured, and (b) placed in the same broad “boy band” genre as the incomparable Beatles, as when a TIME reviewer wrote in 1967 that the Monkees were the result of “wily promoters \[running\] the Beatles through a Xerox machine.” So, in honor of the Nov. 17 release of 1D’s latest album, _Four_, here’s a comeback courtesy of a letter that appeared in the Mar. 3, 1967, issue of TIME:  From the Mar. 3, 1967, issue of TIME So far, _Four_ has been getting [decent reviews,](http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/13/one-direction-four-review "undefined") too — and the haters can like that or lump it. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3584321/one-direction-monkees/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3584321/one-direction-monkees/"},"headline":"Read a Letter From the 1960s Version of a One Direction Fan","datePublished":"2014-11-17T12:00:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:07:04.033Z","description":"A comeback for all the haters out there","url":"https://time.com/3584321/one-direction-monkees/","keywords":["Music","One Direction"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3584321/one-direction-monkees/","name":"Read a Letter From the 1960s Version of a One Direction Fan"}}]}] ```