The Doors have remained an enigma to me, despite over 10 years
\nin the field of reviewing music. You either get them, or you
\ndon’t… and those who do get Jim Morrison usually look upon people
\nlike me (who don’t get it) with disdain.<\/p>\n
Maybe that’s why it’s taken me almost a year to do another Doors
\nreview — but I guess I’ve dodged doing one for so long. But thanks
\nto a VH-1 special on The Doors, I was inspired to dig out their
\nsecond album
\nStrange Days<\/i> for another listen. And, whether you get
\nMorrison or not, this actually is a very good album.<\/p>\n
Following the breakthrough success of their self-titled album,
\nand the smash hit “Light My Fire,” Morrison and crew retreated back
\ninto the studio to continue the magic. Looking back on the album
\ntoday, the two hits stand out the most. “Love Me Two Times” is one
\nof the best blues\/rock fusions I’ve heard, and a song I have
\nenjoyed for some time. Robby Krieger’s guitar provides a powerful
\nanchor to this song, though it is Ray Manzarek’s keyboards that
\nstand out the most. Morrison’s vocal prowess is clearly
\ndemonstrated here — going from a plaintive moan to a banshee wail,
\nhe showed why he was considered one of the most powerful vocalists
\nin rock and roll.<\/p>\n
The other hit, “People Are Strange,” is almost the anti-hit. In
\none sense, it was the first true success of Morrison’s poetry — it
\nwas, after all, a sudden jump from “Come on, baby, light my fire”
\nto “People are strange when you’re a stranger.” Why it was as
\nsuccessful as it was I am at a loss to explain — maybe it was the
\nbrutal honesty of the track, maybe it was the interplay between
\nManzarek and Krieger. Whatever the case, the track works.<\/p>\n
But when Morrison the poet is unleashed, it can occasionally be
\nan ugly thing. The anger behind the words on “Horse Latitudes”
\nalmost was a forbearer of what would eventually happen in Miami —
\nprior to exposing his johnson on stage, Morrison taunted the crowd
\nwith verbal abuse in a manner not unlike the delivery of the vocal
\ntrack here. It’s scary — and it’s a ninety-second waste.<\/p>\n
“When The Music’s Over” could have been a monstrosity at eleven
\nminutes — but the chemical (take that how you want) magic between
\nthe four bandmates makes this track happen — and suddenly, eleven
\nminutes doesn’t seem like that long a time span.<\/p>\n
The bulk of
\nStrange Days<\/i> that remains may be filler, but some of the
\nefforts are quite good. “Moonlight Drive,” complete with
\nbarrelhouse piano and John Densmore’s drum fills, could have been
\nan off-the-cuff hit coming off of “People Are Strange” — pity it
\nwasn’t released that way. “You’re Lost Little Girl” is also an
\ninteresting picture into Morrison’s psyche, one of two “down” songs
\nabout women (the other, “Unhappy Girl,” isn’t as good). And “My
\nEyes Have Seen You” has a raucous power that betrays its length; it
\ncould well rank among some of the best music The Doors ever
\nrecorded.<\/p>\n
\nStrange Days<\/i>, like many of The Doors’ albums, is an
\noccasionally bizarre trip that will yield mixed results, but it is
\nan enjoyable one most of the time, and is an album that’s worth
\nadding to your own private archives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5647],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-35842","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-doors","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35842"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35842"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}