Hey Hey.

"We're the Monkees.....we're the young generation and we've got something to say," and just like that, after two astonishingly productive years, they stopped having something to say. In their halcyon days of 1967-1969, they ruled the two main media channels but once they disappeared off TV, they ceased to exist, except for oldies FM or in vinyl. The passing of Davy Jones last week gave many who grew up with their infectious pop music, pause to reflect on what was and could haves been, what might and what might have been and how time remembers. Time markers come in many iterations but music as the gauge of a generation offers reflection on the past as artists pass away and draw attention to memories, memories that today are never forgotten in the daily web journal of the world.

Like all the musicians of that time, the Monkees only had a few channels to bring about change and achieve success. Once the were off the air, no matter how much of a fan you were, there were no avenues to follow the fortunes of the pre fab four. So for many years they lingered in the nether world of club tours and shopping centre openings and if they happened to be in your town you might go along, just to see what they looked like now. Back then the half life of a group like the Monkees was only a couple of years because traditional media was only interested in the now and unless they made it onto the back page of a music magazine with a nostalgia tour, they basically disappeared.

Today the half life of someone like Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber is closer to 1000 years and beyond. Every facet of their lives is chronicled by all of the digital media available every day, every minute, every second, along with every performance and interview, captured and kept for eternity on the web. The Monkees lasted a meteoric two years on TV with their music lasting slightly longer on nostalgic FM radio but imagine what they could have been had they been around today?

Lady Gaga with 20 million twitter followers and Justin Bieber with 18 million twitter followers have gained more fans in a couple of years than the Monkees did in five decades. It's hard to imagine how big Justin Bieber could be if he had half the resume the Monkees had over two years? Starting in 1967, they had the two highest charting songs for that year, they were the first music artist to win two Emmys, they had four number one albums in one year, they held the number one spot for 31 consecutive weeks on the Billboard album chart, in four years they released 122 songs on 10 albums, they have the 12th biggest selling album of all time, also the longest stay at number one for a debut album until 1982 and finally they introduced Jimi Hendrix to America as their opening act in 1967.

So imagine young Justin with just a couple of those statistics? He would be the sun and the stars for every person under 16 on the planet and his twitter account would no doubt count in the hundreds of millions. The question regarding a legacy fifty years from now for Mr Bieber will revolve around the celebrity and the amount of web universe he took up and less about the music he left behind. Vale Davy Jones.