12 albums, it appears. Heh. Half of them are probably crap.

On the first 2 albums (Monkees, More Of The Monkees) Mike Nesmith was allowed to play but on their third album "Headquarters" the Monkees played and produced everything with the help of Chip Douglas. They released 3 more albums (Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, The Birds, The Bees And The Monkees, Head) with the music being split between the Monkees and studio musicians. After this Peter Tork left the group and Monkees released 2 albums (Instant Replay, Present) without him. By 1970 Mike Nesmith left the group and Micky Dolenz and Davey Jones released a horrible album under the Monkees name titled "Changes".

His mom invented liquid paper which Michael didn't see any of that money until the death of his mom after his Monkees career. Nesmith left the Monkees because he wanted to pursue his own style of music and his solo albums are well liked by the critics. Don't forget Nesmith also won a huge settlement against MTV when they used a lot of his ideas in his movie "Elephant Parts"