Like Jack Daniel’s and a concerning attitude toward young women, The Doors are synonymous with the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, thanks in part to Jim Morrison’s cavorting, leather trousers, chewy lyrics and, crucially, this untimely death.
When it comes to American psychedelic music, there’s a raft of incredible groups and experimentalists, but really, none of them got close to the longevity and celebrity of The Doors. You could argue Jimi Hendrix, but he had to come to England to make his name, while The Doors became far and away the most successful psychedelic rock group of the West Coast. So much so, they had a biopic made about them – The Byrds and Jefferson Airplane didn’t.
With that, they’re a formative group for many people, introducing young ears to their first taste of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll and all that jive. Of course, record collectors will espouse the joys of the 13th Floor Elevators and what have you, but The Doors had a number of hits, a genuine celebrity in ol’ Jimbo, and really have endured where others didn’t.
Like many, we had a Doors phase in our teens before ‘graduating’ to the ‘proper’ stuff, and have generally been a bit pissy about them ever since. Is that fair? Probably not, especially as there’s plenty of adults who will still happily wear a Doors t-shirt down the record shops and rock bars.
So with that, let’s have a look at the back catalogue of The Doors and see if we think they stand up or not.
THE DOORS
Pushing aside our snobby tendencies, there’s really no getting away from the fact that, if you want a snapshot of what the West Coast in 1967 sounded like, you’d do worse than listening to album opener ‘Break On Through’. It’s got all that classic ‘other side’ vaguery which is a counterculture hallmark, along with allusions to ‘them’, and a general otherness without pinning down where exactly we’re breaking through to, and who ‘they’ are.
Latin rhythms, Ray Manzarek’s organ, fuzzy guitars – it’s all there and The Doors really did come out of the blocks pretty hot. ‘Light My Fire’ is a deserved hit, with the infectious Vox Continental organ doing the heavy lifting while Jim croons pretty capably. ‘End Of The Night’ lifts heavily from the Electric Prunes, but that’s alright as they were all at it really. ‘The End’ is a classic rock raga affair, which even then, must’ve sounded like it was going to end up in loads of movies about the death of the teenage dream and war and all that.
It’s far from a perfect album, but it’s pretty solid as debut cuts go and, of course, when Jim sings “show me the way to the next whisky bar”, they had a rock bar anthem for the ages, gathering in all the beer-belly crew in with the acid fiends. Smart move.
STRANGE DAYS
Some big hitters on ‘Strange Days’ and no mistake. ‘Love Me Two Times’ is up there with Morrison’s best vocal performances, as well as the rest of the group – it genuinely explodes in places, coupled with the almost plaintive ‘People Are Strange’, which shouldn’t be judged harshly for being liked by the worst kind of person you know, who uses the song in place of having an actual personality.
Broadly speaking, it doesn’t quite hit the heights of the first album, but then, very few American groups in this period made truly classic albums start-to-finish. Those that did, like ‘Forever Changes’ by Love, didn’t have the selling power that The Doors had. Given that this was the group’s second album in one calendar year, it isn’t surprising that that there might have been some filler.
WAITING FOR THE SUN
Maybe the group were a bit burned out from plenty of touring, Jim’s penchant for shagging and excesses, but this is the first time we hear the group sounding tired. ‘Hello, I Love You’ is a mystifying hit in the back catalogue, aping ‘All Day And All Of The Night’ by The Kinks, but in a crappier way. Maybe fans like it because it’s a relief from the apparent poetry and proselytising, who knows?
That said, there’s some good ol’ gloomy ranting with ‘Five To One’, which thuds away and has the faintest whisp of the proto-metal that was around the corner in rock. The band are getting heavier, but it’s the sweet gambol of ‘Love Street’ that really stands out. Sure, Jim sounds bored as hell on it, but it’s an ear-wormy thing that does a much better job of talking about hot girls than ‘Hello…’ does.
All told, this is an inconsistent album, which is probably fair as the first two were invariably written together, jammed, and more, while this saw them having to create brand new songs while having to deal with being a famous band and all the time constraints that come with that.
THE SOFT PARADE
The album that came out after what is known as ‘The Miami Incident’, where drunk ol’ Jim had got his nob out on stage, chastised his own audience, and chucked a policeman’s hat across a room, and all hell broke loose at their show, cementing his place in the rock history pages as a wild frontman, or buffoon, depending on who you’re talking to.
Little wonder then, that the group were looking to expand their sound after a relative creative burnout of the last. So they threw some brass and orchestras in the mix, and genuinely, it’s the biggest departure in sound in the band’s career. There’s moments on the album where Morrison sounds like he’s completely checked-out, which is a pity because, while this clearly can’t be regarded as the band’s finest work, it’s not all bad.
‘Wishful Sinful’ is a dreamy little psychedelic thing, and ‘Touch Me’ is classic Doors fare (with added brass); it does sound like the band’s most expensively made album in the canon, and the cover photo is a peach, but you can almost hear the rock critics of the time sharpening their pencils to have a pop at the thing.
Concerning the latter, there’s moments where the bloat is evident and worthy of a kicking, especially in the title track where Jim slurs his way through asides like “this is the best part” and some god-awful poetry about whipping horses’ eyes. What’s interesting to hear now is that, the distance between the band and their singer shows that Jim was probably making worse decisions than the group, even if you’re in the market for making a saint of Morrison.
MORRISON HOTEL
After the psychedelic years and the brassy ‘pop’ album, this is when The Doors seemed to become the rhythm & booze band they probably always wanted to be. Morrison’s beer belly helped to define his drawl into a baritone barroom crooner, and the band got to lock in with the blues obsession that swept the States after the frivolous psychedelia sound.
‘Roadhouse Blues’ is a perfect drinking song that makes accountants from provincial towns feel like the know the Hell’s Angels, and ‘Peace Frog’ is just about the funkiest track The Doors ever recorded.
An unusual quirk is finding the song ‘Waiting For The Sun’ on this album, rather than the album of the same name that came before it. Presumably a track from a previous session years past, you can hear the psychedelic influence and as such, it sticks out a bit. Still, this is band finally realising what they needed to be – the boozy elements are great, although, they’re still dogged by pretty lousy poetry.
LA WOMAN
Clearly realising they were onto a good thing, ‘LA Woman’ sees The Doors making ‘Morrison Hotel’ part 2, and it’s no bad thing really. The title track is a sprawling beer gut banger, and ‘The Changeling’ has some of that fire from the early days that make the band sound mildly dangerous.
Of course, this album features one of the high watermarks of the band’s career in the jazzy ‘Riders On The Storm’, which sees Morrison remembering he can sing instead of just deliver polemic, and the Latin touches that back him are as good as the band get.
‘L’America’ is perhaps that darkest, most unhinged thing ever served up by the group, and ‘Hyacinthe House’ is a balmy pop song which is a little throwaway, but really quite sweet.
Of course, this would be the band’s last album before the wheels fell off, but combined with ‘Morrison Hotel’, you can see why this group have endured despite some pretty clunky lyrical content. Largely, they still feel like a gateway band for other stuff, but that’s still a good thing. If listening to The Doors means you end up buy a Love record, then all told, that can’t be a bad thing.
The Pop Corporation 
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