I have been a fan of The Doors music since I was about 12 or 13 and have constantly gone back and forth over which is their absolute best album. This has been an impossible task because, as one who discovered their music a full decade after the death of vocalist Jim Morrison, all six of their original studio albums have been equally timeless in my opinion. As a music critic, however, I must take a fresh listen to a lot of the music I've known all my life and give an honest, sober, critical opinion using my more mature listening skills. From this perspective, I have concluded that the Doors first two albums are even BETTER than I remember. So it is today that I have the daunting yet rewarding labor of love that is reviewing The Doors and Strange Days together.
Of course, in this process I've tried to discern which is the greater work and these two albums have, at different times nudged ahead of each other. The albums are very similar with each having a handful of radio-friendly pop songs, perhaps one romantic ballad, and an extended tour-de-force to cap off the album. The establishment rock press has long given The Doors the edge due to its innovative breakthrough, and there is some merit to that, However, I could not see choosing one over the other for my own desert islan list. One one hand, Strange Days has a slight edge in that it is solid throughout and there are no weak filler songs (of which there are a few on The Doors). Also, Day has a slightly better climactic ending with When the Music's Ove as compared to its parent song The End (that's right, I actually said that!) But on the other hand, Strange Days has nothing comparable to Light My Fir, a unique song in the history of rock, nor does it contain any brilliant cover interpretations like Alabama Song or Back Door Man.
The heart of any discussion about The Doors revolves around Morrison, the genius poet who lived in his life on the edge until his death at age 27. And Morrison made a remarkable evolution during that year of 1967. He came into the year as a shy, unseasoned performer who was unsure of his voice and would turn away from the crowd when onstage. By year's end, as the Doors fame was at its absolute peak, Morrison had morphed into the rash, master of improvisation who taunted police officers while onstage in New Haven, CT to the point where the show was halted and Morrison was arrested and dragged off stage. But what really struck me when revisiting the music this week, is how musically advanced each of these album are sonically.
Much of the credit for the overall sound has to go to producer Paul Rothchild, who spent about four times as long mixing and mastering as the band did with the actual recording. However, the musicians themselves guitarist strong, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, and drummer John Densmore brought an excellent and eclectic mix of diverse styles and influences. They stepped forward and shined to make excellent music, but also showed remarkable restraint when necessary and faded into the background to offer the perfect canvas for Morrison to forge his poetic nuggets.
The Doors
Released: January 4, 1967 (Elektra)
Produced by: Paul A. Rothchild
Recorded: Sunset Sound Recorders, Hollywood, August 1966
Track Listing:
Break On Through
Soul Kitchen
The Crystal Ship
Twentieth Century Fox
Alabama Song
Light My Fire
Back Door Man
I Looked At You
End Of the Night
Take It As It Comes
The End
Strange Days
Released: September 25, 1967 (Elektra)
Produced by: Paul A. Rothchild
Recorded: Sunset Sound Recorders, Hollywood, March-May 1967
Track Listing:
Strange Days
You're Lost, Little Girl
Love Me Two Times
Unhappy Girl
Horse Latitudes
Moonlight Drive
People Are Strange
My Eyes Have Seen You
I Cant See Your Face In My Mind
When the Music's Over
Band Musicians (Both Albums)
Jim Morrison Lead Vocals
Robbie Krieger Guitars
Ray Manzarek Keyboards, Piano, Bass
John Densmore Drums
The Doors album was released during the very first week of 1967. It was on the cutting edge of modern music during a historic year for rock n roll on many fronts. However, the actual recording procedures were quite antiquated. Recorded at Sunset Sound in Hollywood over six days, Rothchild and engineer Bruce Botnick used a 4-track tape machine for all recording and overdubbing (to put this in perspective, by the early 1970s top albums were recorded on 24 tracks). What Rothchild and Botnick lacked in modern technology, they made up for in proficiency and genius.
Ironically for such a breakthrough album, both the opening and closing songs had parts which were censored. In a section of the closer The End, Morrison repeats fuck repeatedly, but this was buried so far in the mix to be unintelligible. The opening song, Break on Through (To the Other Side) originally contained the lyrics; She gets high, she gets high, which was truncated to simply She gets, she gets Aside from this unfortunate omission, the song is the absolute perfect opener for the album and the band itself. The band's unofficial motto was Where you see a wall, we see a door and Break on Through is the perfect musical articulation of this. The piece also showcases the talents of each member, beginning with an infectious groove led by Densmore's jazz-flavored drums and Manarek's Fender Rhodes keyboard bass groove. Kreiger plays an adaptation of a Paul Butterfield blues riff, while Morrison provides some shredding vocals to make the mission and message completely unambiguous.
A more moderate groove follows with Soul Kitche. Kreiger plays a funk/soul riff that he says was trying to emulate the horn section of a typical James Brown song. Manzarek's key bass is doubled up in unison with session bassist Larry Knechtel to further highlight the soul aspect of the song. The song is a tribute to a restaurant in Venice Beach which often let Morrison sleep overnight while he was homeless in 1965. The Crystal Ship may be one of the few traditional love songs in the band's catalog. Morrison croons like early Frank Sinatra while Manzarek shows that he is also an impressive pianist.
Twentieth Century Fox is the first boilerplate pop song on the album, using the cleaver double-entendre hook in a piece meant for nothing more than dancing. However the next track, Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) couldn't be further from a traditional pop/rock track. Written in 1927 by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, the song was used in various operas as Whisky Bar or Moon over Alabama. The song was presented to the band by Manzarek and adapted with updated lyrics, becoming an entertaining part of their live sets.
Although composition credit for all songs on The Doors went to the band as a whole, the album's primary writers were actually Morrison and Krieger. One day, the guitarist presented a mellow folk song to the band called Light My Fire. Impressed by the interesting chord changes, the rest of the band kicked in and built upon the simple song with Densmore providing a Latin beat, Morrison adding some lyrics and Manzarek coming up with the famous, signature keyboard run. Further, the band added a long jam section in the middle of the song as a showcase for their musical talents, inflating the song's duration to over seven minutes. The song would go on to become the band's first number one hit and probably their most famous ever. Jon Feliciano's cover version won a Grammy a few years later and the song was used in television commercials (something Morrison was vehemently opposed to). It was also the subject of controversy on the Ed Sullivan Show, when the band was told they couldnt use the girl, we couldn't get much higher, but Morrison sang the original lyric anyway.
The second side of the debut album starts with Back Door Man, a blues song written by Willie Dixon and recorded by Howlin Wolf in 1961. The Doors version includes some wild howling and screaming by Morrison above an intense, pulsating beat by the band members, making the whole recording very sexual in nature. This is something Robert Plant and Led Zeppelin would replicate in their earliest recordings a few years later.
The middle part of the second side contains three short song. haunting End of the Night was one of the earliest Doors songs, written in 1965. Musically, Kreiger shines brightest here, with Morrison borrowing the title and key lyric from William Blake's poem Auguries of Innocence. This song is sandwiched between two more upbeat numbers. I Looked at You is a pure California sixties pop song, with an almost surfer-like vibe, while Take It As It Comes plays on the time for everything theme, no doubt inspired by The Byrds Turn, Turn Turn.
Of course, in this process I've tried to discern which is the greater work and these two albums have, at different times nudged ahead of each other. The albums are very similar with each having a handful of radio-friendly pop songs, perhaps one romantic ballad, and an extended tour-de-force to cap off the album. The establishment rock press has long given The Doors the edge due to its innovative breakthrough, and there is some merit to that, However, I could not see choosing one over the other for my own desert islan list. One one hand, Strange Days has a slight edge in that it is solid throughout and there are no weak filler songs (of which there are a few on The Doors). Also, Day has a slightly better climactic ending with When the Music's Ove as compared to its parent song The End (that's right, I actually said that!) But on the other hand, Strange Days has nothing comparable to Light My Fir, a unique song in the history of rock, nor does it contain any brilliant cover interpretations like Alabama Song or Back Door Man.
The heart of any discussion about The Doors revolves around Morrison, the genius poet who lived in his life on the edge until his death at age 27. And Morrison made a remarkable evolution during that year of 1967. He came into the year as a shy, unseasoned performer who was unsure of his voice and would turn away from the crowd when onstage. By year's end, as the Doors fame was at its absolute peak, Morrison had morphed into the rash, master of improvisation who taunted police officers while onstage in New Haven, CT to the point where the show was halted and Morrison was arrested and dragged off stage. But what really struck me when revisiting the music this week, is how musically advanced each of these album are sonically.
Much of the credit for the overall sound has to go to producer Paul Rothchild, who spent about four times as long mixing and mastering as the band did with the actual recording. However, the musicians themselves guitarist strong, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, and drummer John Densmore brought an excellent and eclectic mix of diverse styles and influences. They stepped forward and shined to make excellent music, but also showed remarkable restraint when necessary and faded into the background to offer the perfect canvas for Morrison to forge his poetic nuggets.
The Doors
Released: January 4, 1967 (Elektra)
Produced by: Paul A. Rothchild
Recorded: Sunset Sound Recorders, Hollywood, August 1966
Track Listing:
Break On Through
Soul Kitchen
The Crystal Ship
Twentieth Century Fox
Alabama Song
Light My Fire
Back Door Man
I Looked At You
End Of the Night
Take It As It Comes
The End
Strange Days
Released: September 25, 1967 (Elektra)
Produced by: Paul A. Rothchild
Recorded: Sunset Sound Recorders, Hollywood, March-May 1967
Track Listing:
Strange Days
You're Lost, Little Girl
Love Me Two Times
Unhappy Girl
Horse Latitudes
Moonlight Drive
People Are Strange
My Eyes Have Seen You
I Cant See Your Face In My Mind
When the Music's Over
Band Musicians (Both Albums)
Jim Morrison Lead Vocals
Robbie Krieger Guitars
Ray Manzarek Keyboards, Piano, Bass
John Densmore Drums
The Doors album was released during the very first week of 1967. It was on the cutting edge of modern music during a historic year for rock n roll on many fronts. However, the actual recording procedures were quite antiquated. Recorded at Sunset Sound in Hollywood over six days, Rothchild and engineer Bruce Botnick used a 4-track tape machine for all recording and overdubbing (to put this in perspective, by the early 1970s top albums were recorded on 24 tracks). What Rothchild and Botnick lacked in modern technology, they made up for in proficiency and genius.
Ironically for such a breakthrough album, both the opening and closing songs had parts which were censored. In a section of the closer The End, Morrison repeats fuck repeatedly, but this was buried so far in the mix to be unintelligible. The opening song, Break on Through (To the Other Side) originally contained the lyrics; She gets high, she gets high, which was truncated to simply She gets, she gets Aside from this unfortunate omission, the song is the absolute perfect opener for the album and the band itself. The band's unofficial motto was Where you see a wall, we see a door and Break on Through is the perfect musical articulation of this. The piece also showcases the talents of each member, beginning with an infectious groove led by Densmore's jazz-flavored drums and Manarek's Fender Rhodes keyboard bass groove. Kreiger plays an adaptation of a Paul Butterfield blues riff, while Morrison provides some shredding vocals to make the mission and message completely unambiguous.
A more moderate groove follows with Soul Kitche. Kreiger plays a funk/soul riff that he says was trying to emulate the horn section of a typical James Brown song. Manzarek's key bass is doubled up in unison with session bassist Larry Knechtel to further highlight the soul aspect of the song. The song is a tribute to a restaurant in Venice Beach which often let Morrison sleep overnight while he was homeless in 1965. The Crystal Ship may be one of the few traditional love songs in the band's catalog. Morrison croons like early Frank Sinatra while Manzarek shows that he is also an impressive pianist.
Twentieth Century Fox is the first boilerplate pop song on the album, using the cleaver double-entendre hook in a piece meant for nothing more than dancing. However the next track, Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) couldn't be further from a traditional pop/rock track. Written in 1927 by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, the song was used in various operas as Whisky Bar or Moon over Alabama. The song was presented to the band by Manzarek and adapted with updated lyrics, becoming an entertaining part of their live sets.
Although composition credit for all songs on The Doors went to the band as a whole, the album's primary writers were actually Morrison and Krieger. One day, the guitarist presented a mellow folk song to the band called Light My Fire. Impressed by the interesting chord changes, the rest of the band kicked in and built upon the simple song with Densmore providing a Latin beat, Morrison adding some lyrics and Manzarek coming up with the famous, signature keyboard run. Further, the band added a long jam section in the middle of the song as a showcase for their musical talents, inflating the song's duration to over seven minutes. The song would go on to become the band's first number one hit and probably their most famous ever. Jon Feliciano's cover version won a Grammy a few years later and the song was used in television commercials (something Morrison was vehemently opposed to). It was also the subject of controversy on the Ed Sullivan Show, when the band was told they couldnt use the girl, we couldn't get much higher, but Morrison sang the original lyric anyway.
The second side of the debut album starts with Back Door Man, a blues song written by Willie Dixon and recorded by Howlin Wolf in 1961. The Doors version includes some wild howling and screaming by Morrison above an intense, pulsating beat by the band members, making the whole recording very sexual in nature. This is something Robert Plant and Led Zeppelin would replicate in their earliest recordings a few years later.
The middle part of the second side contains three short song. haunting End of the Night was one of the earliest Doors songs, written in 1965. Musically, Kreiger shines brightest here, with Morrison borrowing the title and key lyric from William Blake's poem Auguries of Innocence. This song is sandwiched between two more upbeat numbers. I Looked at You is a pure California sixties pop song, with an almost surfer-like vibe, while Take It As It Comes plays on the time for everything theme, no doubt inspired by The Byrds Turn, Turn Turn.