I’ve never been one who subscribed to the whole Doors cult, or
\nworshipped Jim Morrison as a tragic Christ figure. While I’ve
\nadmired some of the band’s music over the years (one of the first
\nrecords I ever had was a 45 of “Light My Fire” that a neighbor gave
\nto me), I’ve always approached their music with equal amounts of
\nrespect and caution. As long as the Doors kept their feet on the
\nground, I was cool with things, but when Morrison went off into his
\nown musical tangents (as he was wont to do), that was about the
\npoint I would cut bait.<\/p>\n
Take the 1967 self-titled release from The Doors. There are
\nmoments of sheer brilliance on this album — and there are moments
\nwhere I can’t help but think that the band had to be tripping on
\nsome real nasty stuff. Blasphemy? Rants against the sacred prophet?
\nRead on, and form your own judgments.<\/p>\n
For a group that had no bass player, The Doors were incredibly
\ntight, if not maybe intentionally sloppy at times. For example,
\nRobby Kreiger’s guitar solo on “Light My Fire” would not have
\ncarried as much punch had it been more cohesive instead of a little
\nspacy as it stands. (Actually, in the case of
\nThe Doors<\/i>, the commentary of “no bass player” is not
\ncorrect; keyboardist Ray Manzarek handles the bass chores; but in
\ngeneral, the band did perform without a bassist.)<\/p>\n
As a blues belter, Morrison had more power than I think even he
\nrealized. The proof is on the cover of the Willie Dixon\/Howlin’
\nWolf classic “Back Door Man,” a song that gave Morrison a chance to
\nshow off his blues pipes better than “Roadhouse Blues” later on in
\ntheir career. Likewise, Morrison could easily hold his own on the
\nband’s own compositions, such as “Soul Kitchen,” “Twentieth Century
\nFox” and “Break On Through (To The Other Side).”<\/p>\n
But there are moments where you have to step back and ask
\nyourself, “What were they
\nthinking<\/i>?” Exhibit “A”: their cover of “Alabama Song (Whisky
\nBar),” a Kurt Weill-Berthold Brecht composition that sounds as out
\nof place as wearing a Zoot suit to a funeral. Okay, maybe it was a
\nrather accurate description of Morrison, and that’s why they chose
\nto do the track, but that doesn’t make it stick out any less like a
\nsore thumb.<\/p>\n
Exhibit “B”: the 11-minute monstrosity known as “The End.” A
\nVietnam-esque nightmare of a song which shows a man facing off
\nagainst his own personal demons and leading to death and more
\ndespair, this one sounds far too much like a
\nstream-of-consciousness work that you’d hear booed off the stage at
\na poetry slam.<\/p>\n
The only other real negative I could find with
\nThe Doors<\/i> is that a good portion of the second half —
\nnamely, the three songs sandwiched between “Back Door Man” and “The
\nEnd” — tend to get lost in a jumble that is the rest of the album.
\nI don’t want to speak ill of these tracks; chances are, had they
\nbeen anywhere else on the album, they’d have been standouts. But a
\ndisservice is done to them by their present placement.<\/p>\n
I’ve tried to keep talk about “Light My Fire” to a minimum in
\nthis review, for the simple fact that it is arguably one of the
\nmost recognizable Doors songs in their catalog. I will say this:
\nEven after over 30 years since its release, it’s still a killer
\ntrack — and I happen to love both the original version and the
\nsingle edit.<\/p>\n
Yeah, I know that the diehard Doors fans and Morrison
\nworshippers are now ready to kill me for my sacrilegious words. (I
\nonce worked with a Doors freak at the college newspaper; my buddy
\nJim and I used to entertain ourselves by throwing X-Acto knives at
\nthe guy’s poster of Morrison he hung on his cubicle wall.) But make
\nno mistake that when
\nThe Doors<\/i> attacks things without their heads in the clouds,
\nthe music is quite good and worthy of your time and money. But when
\nMorrison starts spewing off the top of his head, things turn real
\nugly, real quick. Of course, if you worship the ground Morrison
\nused to walk on, feel free to reverse the descriptions in this
\nreview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5647],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-36522","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-doors","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36522","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=36522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36522"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36522"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}