 | Strange Days (1967)Genres: rock, psychedelic rock |
review by thomas
This dark psychedelic record from the Doors is of extremely high quality; I can’t find one bad moment within it. The Doors were obviously best when in the dark mood, the Doors were dark and strange, the other side of the love and peace singing bands, and this is their darkest album. On “Strange Days” we sometimes find dark and sad issues disguised in a more light musical structure (“Unhappy Girl” and “Moonlight Drive”) so that one can be fooled it’s a song about happiness, or whatever, you’re listening to. It’s not.
Many songs are downright dark and heavy, like the amazing title track (how does Manzarek create that spooky organ sound?) and the 11-minute pure gold song “When the Music’s Over” that is miles better than “The End”. The marimba sets its mark upon “I Can’t See Your Face in My Mind” and of the more weird stuff we find a spoken “Horse Latitudes” complete with background effects and general noise and the Brecht-Weill inspired “People are Strange”, a perfection of the musical style we find in the cover “Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)” from their eponymous debut album by just Brecht-Weill, it’s a kind of theatrical 1920s stage smelling song in just over two minutes. Krieger on guitar often plays his loose “Hawaii-style” on this album, which is better than what you may think, and besides, it’s Manzarek and Morrison who dominate the sound on “Strange Days”, a strange album indeed!
No collection is complete without this early masterpiece of dark psychedelic music.
 | Waiting for the Sun (1968)Genres: rock, psychedelic rock |
review by thomas
Seemingly more light and optimistic in nature (if “Strange Days” is winter then this one is spring or summer) ”Waiting for the Sun” gave us such well-known songs as “Hello I Love You” (which draw inspiration from Baudelaire), “Five to One” and “The Unknown Soldier”. And although the first one is rather uninteresting, the two others are not. They are top-notch music, I particularly like the groovy calypso/funk rocking rhythm (maybe not the best description!) in the beginning of “The Unknown Soldier” and the drum work from Densmore in “Five to One”, which is one of the Doors’ hardest songs. The a cappella experience of “My Wild Love” came out rather disappointing, the song “Whiskey, Mystics and Men” from the Doors’ box set is a much better example of a good a cappella song.
The Doors were at the time working on their theatrical opus “The Celebration of the Lizard” which never came to be in the studio, they did perform pieces live. But “Not to Touch the Earth” was a piece from the opus which was done in the studio and we find it here on “Waiting for the Sun” in great shape with master-class keyboards. The big surprise is otherwise that the just under two minutes piece “Wintertime Love” with splendid harpsichord (one most hear them to understand just how good they’re) is among the best pieces of the album. “Love Street” is another Morrison song about secret-ism and it is one of those piano calm songs; and together with “Hyacinth House” (also dealing with secrets) from “L.A. Woman” it’s the greatest song in this particular style.
Again a work of good class from the Doors. One striking and extremely rare thing with them is that no matter how bad a song of theirs turned out to be, the keyboards from Ray Manzarek were never the same. I really mean it! Not one time his playing is bad or even uninteresting. And although the spotlight was on Morrison, and he and Robbie wrote most of the music, Manzarek seems to have been the great arranger. And I shall not forget to mention the excellent drum sound from Densmore; maybe the most neglected thing and member respectively.
 | The Soft Parade (1969)Genres: rock, psychedelic rock |
review by thomas
The fourth album from the Doors was an experiment in different ways than on their past three long-players. Here they tried to be more light, moody and accessible. They also added a massive arsenal of wind instruments and some orchestration. It’s doubtful if they really became more accessible in general, but “Touch Me”, “Wishful Sinful”, “Tell All the People” and “Easy Ride” are indeed rather commercial and accessible. I actually like “Wishful Sinful” and “Tell All the People” but I don’t like “Touch Me” with its cheesy saxes and the Robbie Krieger chorus singed blues-grass of “Runnin’ Blue” is pure bad taste. “Do It” and “Easy Ride” suffers from bad composing/not given enough attention, mostly due to problems (alcohol and more) with Morrison, which affected the whole album.
Strong songs on “The Soft Parade” are “Shaman’s Blues”, a Morrison song in the old style, the mystic blues inspired (but played in a fast tempo) “Wild Child” and of course the lengthy title track. The title track is perhaps the best example of the Doors in their most poetic-symphonic style. The song begins with Morrison's famous lament over the petition to the Lord and after some lovely harpsichord comes a fast tempo “jazz-funk” piece, then a short nursery rhyme section before the main section comes with extra percussion and good organs from Manzarek. One of their best songs.
“The Soft Parade” is not another great album from the Doors, it’s much too unfocused and sometimes just bad. But the Doors never made a bad record and as I have said before: Manzarek never disappoints you. So this one has its moments and if you like other Doors albums you will at least find something good also on this.
 | L.A. Woman (1971)Genres: rock, psychedelic rock, blues-rock |
review by thomas
When one consider the fact that when the Doors played their blues standards, mostly covers, for example ”Who Do You Love”, ”Close to You” and own compositions such as ”Build Me a Woman” and ”I Will Never Be Untrue”, when the Doors played these and other blues songs in concert it sounded to me like a band trying to play something they shouldn’t or couldn’t do.
So when the last record with Morrison – L.A. Woman – was largely built on a blues/rock ground, a somewhat heavy blues ground, you didn’t exactly bring forth a hoorah. But to my surprise the Doors now managed to avoid what they did live during the past years and play a more fitting heavy blues-rock with some psychedelic moments still intact and then some progressive touches too. Morrison is in good shape, well at least his voice, he sings with a somewhat more mature voice, a little harsher, smokier, more thundering and sometimes he almost growl like a bear. Densmore on drums can’t be in greater shape than on this record. For that matter the whole band is really alive and kicking.
Besides the cover of “Crawling King Snake” and the slow blues shuffle “Cars Hiss by My Window” they managed to sound interesting, fresh and even progressive in both aspects of that word. Exceptional songs include the progressive heavy blues of the long title track and of course the mystic laziness of “Riders on the Storm” with hypnotizing bass and Morrison’s spooky vocal performance. “Love Her Madly” is a lovely Krieger written ballad and “Hyacinth House” with all its lyrical secrets and its killer organ (it’s really to die for) is a stunning and beautiful song. Then we have some really heavy blues based rock in “The Changeling”, “Been Down So Long” and “The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)”. Here is also the exotic and heavy “L’America” with an overall eerie feeling.
