The Doors - The Doors (1967)
The Doors were one of my deepest fixations of my early high school classic rock era (Dylan didn’t count as classic rock to me in the same way the Bible doesn’t necessarily count as “a book”). Not to be too hipsterish, but that was the summer before the Val Kilmer movie, although I loved that movie.
Most of the songs on this record are not among their best songs overall, but this is the best Doors album to listen to end-to-end.
Jim Morrison was a charismatic frontman who probably would have been successful regardless, but what sets the band apart is the overall sound: Ray Manzarek’s synth bass and organ combo, along with one of the odder and more inventive drummers of the era, John Densmore.
In addition to Morrison’s poetry–which ranges between the hippie love-and-space romanticism of Crystal Ship and the apocalyptic vision of the final track–you also get the band’s cheeky take on the Whiskey Bar song from Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera, as well as a rave-up of the Willie Dixon blues stomp Back Door Man.
Oh, and Light My Fire is okay, I guess. I once got in my car to drive to work and Light My Fire was on the radio and just starting the organ solo. I got all the way from home to work before the solo was done.
