What's up with hating on the Doors?

I mean what? Why? I'm sure this is not the Door's fault but for some reason they, more than the Beatles or even Pink Floyd stick out as the band that "that kind of moron" liked.

(I don't think you're a moron Dare!) I think instead of listening to the classic rock fans I used to read the NME and buy things they gave good reviews to when I was 15 or 16. I think this is better because there was a stronger chance of me not deciding I liked the band when the pressure to conform was because of the NME's recommendation and not years of acclaim and millions of fans and some fantastic heritage.

When me and Sean met up briefly yesterday this is just the thing he was talking abt. the fans (though Jim's vocals and his 'muse' came into it too).

I liked the first alb. just fine and, thinking abt the fans, i suppose it's kinds the same in britain with the stone roses and to a certain extent the smiths, too. And i suppose the music isn't strong enough to get over all of that extra non-musical baggage that you get here (apart fromt he smiths).

Now I think that's because they feel a bit out of date, but I wonder if at the time it was more a sense of frustration that I was a geeky virgin and Jim was a sexually magnetic rock god and what's more sang as if everyone listening knew it (which they did).

This is just the thing Sean was talking abt too yesterday (don't if he listened when he was 14).

OK, so I don't retain lyrics in my memory. But i wanted to ask is why ppl keep going on abt vocals, especially if you like punk rock (I don't know if you do Tom). Some punk bands sung their stuff badly (or they didn't pay especial attention to it) and yet a lot of ppl will like it. Surely it can't be that big an issue nowdays?

or something

But can you do anyhting with the voice if you haven't got the technical capailities? You can't, all you can do is recognise taht there is a limitation and take it from there. Which is what morrison did.

They both have their pleasures -- it's just that I like them both when they're at their most florid.

Julio - I don't agree. Some areas of vocalising don't need as much technical singing ability - especially those areas which approach speech.

Incidentally, I was trying in my head to remember what the Doors sound like, and all I can come up with is Will Young singing 'Light My Fire'!! Signs of the Times...

well, I don't think you just talk through the lyrics of 'The end' can you? Those require that you sing them and he does a good job of it (and those lyrics are funny by the way though I don't register everything he says).

i have this problem with the fact that some of you think they were serious and pretentious: if you look at that first alb. there's quite a lot of humour injected in some of the tunes I think. Morrison was 'ambitious' I suppose but what's wrong with that?

if you do that then you are just as bad as those wankers you talked abt.

the doors = the stooges it is ok to like, julio

will young has 20 gazillion time the technique morrison had: so is that a good thing or a bad thing?

''the doors = the stooges it is ok to like, julio''

Again, I never said i didn't like the stooges. THATS WHAT YOU'RE SAYING MARK S. all i said is that as an experiment in combining the rock with the jazz it failed (and that's funhouse).

I don't go by things that are 'OK to like' (music journalists seem to think they dictate such things but they are very lucky since their readership is very young). The doors are quite a good rock band, just like the stooges. What i don't understand is the problem with Jim's vocals, and their 'pretentiousness', etc. The fact is their first alb gets the OK in the Desouza household.

''will young has 20 gazillion time the technique morrison had: so is that a good thing or a bad thing?''

Why do you ask a question when you already know the answer to?

the stooges funhouse= success in terms of incorporating free jazz ideas into rock. a keystone.

this is just the sort of thing that makes me CRAZY!

Echo and the bunnymen were influenced by the doors! How strange.

early Swans had a clear Stooges influence and i rilly prefer listening to swans rather than funhouse.

you can really see through the bullshit only when you see a band live that is true (well, most of the time). Suggest a live comp please?

More to the point, the comparison twixt Doors and Echo has been made, and while I don't see it either, I'm not justifying it with all this rigamorale about who was more influential or the like. All I need to know is what I hear.

I almost bought a Doors album tonight cos I wonder if I would like them now - it's been so long. I really really love a lot of 60s American music, though not so much the West Coast psych stuff...but you never know.

U2 suffer from the same problem. Except they don't have a keyboard player.

Most ppl in this thread don't seem to like 'em but it doesn't mean it's a joke.

i do prefer will young's version of "light my fire", because he gets something unlikely out of its chilly self-regard

this is just not true on the first alb. i'm not saying its great but then again how many rock vocalists were really 'accomplished'?

i was thinking of mentioning curtis: an even more limited singer, in a way, but i think the tension — between reach and grasp — works well for the actual material jd recorded

i shall draw a veil of the trig-triangle sentence, since it introduces a NEW and hitherto UNRECOGNISED usage of influence which will merely add to our griefs...

by which I mean that the semantic difficulty seems a personal issue -- Ian McC models his delivery on Morrison's, Morrison influences McC -- the glass is half-empty, the glass is half-full

the ppl an artist influences are the ones who go on to do nothing but listen passively; the ones who go on to do things themselves are the ones s/he NO LONGER influences

1) when I talk about influence I am talking about what an artist does with his/her models -- how he/she puts them into play, NOT describing some situation in which say Ian Curtis flexes his scrawny muscles FROM THE GRAVE

2) when I am describing somebody who has elected to model themselves after another and not done something interesting with it I tend to use the word "damage" and urge others to do likewise and

3) there is a need for more vodka around here, who's with me

I do not hate the Doors.

I do not exactly love them either.

I am not ashamed to say that I once loved them.

Plus: Had the Doors never happened, Kyle MacLachlan would've never been able to play Ray Manzarek in a funny movie like The Doors.

Norman this is heresy...Ned back me up here

I am much more of a Cure fan than an Echo fan, to be sure -- whereas I scrounged Napster and the like for every last Cure rarity I could find, I just let the Echo box set do that for me, see. And I'm much more prone to putting on Faith than Heaven Up Here etc. -- but I fully sympathize with where Norman is coming from. My good friend Karen feels the same way; Echo were one of 'her' bands when growing up in the eighties, though I'd have to ask her to delineate the full reasons why she has said preference (then again, she might find the thread and do that for me!).

Suffice to say that Echo have their own particular brilliance I will not deny. But Bob and company are on a higher plane for me. :-)

I don't know if it's been mentioned much in this (long now!) thread, but it seems to me like a lot of the things people hate about the Doors are painfully similar to all kinds of rock-n-roll romanticism and sexuality and druggy hedonism.

I think Oliver Stone has done more to perpetuate Doors hate than any real Doors detractor ever has. Just thinking about that movie annoys me.

You people didn't go into The Doors w/ the right attitude. Yes it's awful but I found it very funny.

The soundtrack helped as well.

Plus it has Meg Ryan, and anything with Meg Ryan in it is pure evil.

Even Kyle McLachlan can't save it, and he is the king of movies people think are rub but are secretly brilliant (Showgirls, Dune, etc.).

But i like the movie. I don't care if Oliver stone gave the wrong impression/whatever.

Actually, that doesn't surprise me in the least. Historically speaking, RS has been notorious for carrying on ridiculous turf grudges: overrating SF bands while poo-pooing L.A. bands like the Beach Boys, and the like.

But really, maybe some doors fans saw similarities not only artistically but intheir life (both were kinda tragic though i don't know).

The point is Andrew is again using the 'fans suck therefore band/band member does' argument, which in this case doesn't hold.

I'm surprised Smiths fans haven't scribbled the lyrics to "Cemetry Gates" all over Oscar's tombstone.

Are you feeling better now? I don't think so. Have some tea and go to bed, take some rest and you might feel better.

I say this is because it's a completely diff argument. Andrew says that fans scribbled stuff on wilde's grave and therefore it is PROOF that the doors (the band) suck. I say this is not so as the audience hasn't nothing to do w/music a band makes.

Influence was mentioned again because of this line:

''oscar wilde and jim morrison are different ppl, julio''

which was yr influence thing all over: x is diff to y therefore x cannot be influenced by y blah blah. I haf always disagreed with this and have said so on numerous occasions.

"Hast seen the White Whale?"

julio if you cannot spot the significant logical flaw in yr argument IN THAT LAST POST then it is no particular bother to me that i have not persuaded you => the word is a mumbojumbo because you can mean it to mean whatever you want, whenever you want to, exactly as you just did; it explains nothing because it is routinely cited to explain everything or anything or whatever, all switched about and chaotic

the idea abt difft people bears no relationship to anything i have ever said

''the word is a mumbojumbo because you can mean it to mean whatever you want, whenever you want to, exactly as you just did; it explains nothing because it is routinely cited to explain everything or anything or whatever, all switched about and chaotic''

No. When i use the word 'influence' it means that a certain artist has a certain relationship w/antoher in the way they sound. because artist x sounds like y then, it could be argued, that y could have been influenced by x. THAT IS ALL. you are the one talking mumbojumbo.

I mean how can you use 'influence' in any other way when talking abt the way music from one time might be realted to another.

julio claims: doors fans are called "doors fans" because doors music has no influence over them and they celebrate their doors fandom — for example by scrawling all over the gravestones of the other poets in pere lachaise — because they have no relationship with the thing they are celebrating

if influence exists, if morrison has power over his listeners, then how they behave is his responsibility

because you are afraid of talking about the nature of this power (except very casually and uncritically when it comes to "marketing") — and because alex in mainhatten is for example afraid of talking about the LIMITS of this power (he thinks it is cynical) — i don't accept that influence is a word with genuine meaning to you, it's just a cover for a bit of intellectual slippage to avoid thinking about something inconvenient, to avoid saying the stuff that might actually be interesting about why [x] sounds like [y]... it's a shorthand, yes, and it's basically a shorthand for "i entirely accept the underyling worldview of the people who write press releases for REM"

john is right that i am probably now over-attuned to it: but hey, it's my whale

(haha david did you not yet read those TWO MASSIVE DOCUMENTS i emailed you?)

Music MIGHT be related from another era/time. Little sounds like, say, cecil taylor but maybe he was looking at what Monk was doing as a starting point to SOMETHING ELSE and then maybe M.SHIPP or FRED VAN HOVE used some of taylor's ideas to something OF THEIR OWN.

''doors fans are called "doors fans" because doors music has no influence over them and they celebrate their doors fandom — for example by scrawling all over the gravestones of the other poets in pere lachaise — because they have no relationship with the thing they are celebrating

if influence exists, if morrison has power over his listeners, then how they behave is his responsibility''

I am not saying there isn't a relationship. What i'm saying is that the relationship isn't on a musical level. When a band starts they have no fans, the music comes from them.

''i don't accept that influence is a word with genuine meaning to you, it's just a cover for a bit of intellectual slippage to avoid thinking about something inconvenient, to avoid saying the stuff that might actually be interesting about why [x] sounds like [y]... it's a shorthand, yes, and it's basically a shorthand for "i entirely accept the underyling worldview of the people who write press releases for REM" ''

I agree that influence may stop you saying things as a critic but that does not mean it means nothing ot that it just doesn't exist. I like your alternative to the 'i' word but influence exists. you are probably a bit mad abt it because it's over-used but there you go.

I don't know abt the worldview of ppl who write press releases for REM but i take it to mean that it is narrow and whatever but you don't know me so don't judge because i happen to disagree with you on a MINOR point.

luckily i am ill today and do not have to respond immediately

well i'd like him to go there.

''i am frightened of what we will find there: perhaps it is beyond our capacity to process?''

just a silly excuse then.

yr above post started to become clearer to me after this line.

David- I'm back in england on friday. I will set up that MSN account so that we can chat (if you are still up for that of course).

i do not know enough abt logic, only inorganic chemistry.

julio i wasn't getting at you, i only said REM because they are the kind of group where press releases always talk abt "influence" as if it's obvious what's going and why: but it isn't

relationship is a MUCH better word: "stefan jaworzyn has a relationship with derek bailey..." and the reason for that is that you can't anyway separate the musical dimension from the emotional or symbolic or "political" or __________ or __________... Relationship is a better word because it is SO general that you are forced to the next stage (which is to try and describe it, and how it works, and how it fails). 'Influence" sounds particular but then turns out to be vague and general, except when you push the generality (eg are fans "influenced"?) it fails to be general enough. It enforces a built-in assumption abt how music works, which is (i think) a dull assumption even if true, and (i also think) rarely very helpfully true.

the "frightened" line was a joke (sort of) (it wd be more obviously a joke if i actually DID GO THERE obv)

The example above i can see it a bit better. I like the use of 'relationship'.

i suppose whenever i see the 'i' word I'll just have to see if it leads anywhere or not. I think the paragraph above tells me a bit more than all your other 'rants'.

they have, the bedwetting goons.

for the record, I quite like the music when Jim shuts up. It's pity he ever said anything.

morrisey lyrics too?

how bloody depressing.

I do not register lyrics in my brane when i listen to recs but the bits i have registered are quite funny (maybe hearing the doors as comedy recs, as sens was jokingly telling me, might be the way forward).

Capt beefheart is the only rock poet i've heard (but is is rock anyway?).

I agree that when Morrison starts talking about snakes and lakes my interest level drops precipitously; however, to proceed from that point to a claim that Morrison never wrote anything but crap lyrics is unjustified. Some of his songs are very direct, emotional, and - dare I say? - subtle statements. "Soul Kitchen", for example, is a succinct and deeply felt evocation of a particular state of mind, and I think anyone who has felt that way can relate to it. Plus it has some great lines: "The cars crawl past all stuffed with eyes" or "Your fingers weave quick minarets / Speak in secret alphabets / I light another cigarette / Learn to forget". No doggerel there.

And I'm really sorry, but I find even the better lyrics you quote trite as all get-out. Nor do I find them bouyed up by the music. They may well be funny to some, but do consider they were truly meant to be taken seriously. If you are sniggering fine, but please admit that you're indulging in some ironic interpretation that admits the inate pretension of Jim's writing. Jim himself while he was alive definetely claimed to be a poet.Therefore it's quite reasonable to believe him and analyse his lyrics as poetry. And I reckon it's absolutley shithouse poetry.

This influence debate I don't really understand. The word covers conscious imitation certainly, but also unconscious regurgitation. I don't see what's difficult about acknowledging that aspect of the creative process.

Now, if you want outright theft of the Morrison vocal schtick, why not check out The Tea Party? As much as that guy claims that he's not trying to channel Morrison, I will never ever believe him.

it's obfuscation pretending to be clarification

"so what temperature is the baby's bathwater, mark s?"
"it's spong!"
"you didn't even check!"
"that's what's so great, i no longer have to!!"

I have kids?

Actually a pretty incredible thread, this, tons of good discussions and anecdotes both.

Don't worry, you'll grow out of that soon.

as a recovering "Door-o-phile", the only things one can say about them in defense is that for a while, they were by themselves. no one quite sounded like that (or since, thankfully) or took thier own press as seriously. beatles perhaps, but, i roundly dismiss the beatles, being that SOMEONE would've done exactly what they did, had they not.probably the stones, but, even they would've done it better.

i guess you have to look at where music was at the time, ie-1967. i still think the first 2 doors albums are total classics! a few mis-steps, but, still very listenable and recorded within 6 months. only CCR can step like that. cream, almost.

musically, the doors were solid, but, didn't liquify into murky jams too often. there's a zeal to it all, too. a youthfully naive sound, like someone who has yet to fail. which they managed to do soon after.
lyrically, i now cringe, but as a fella coming from metal into what i considered dismissable music (classic rawk) i was taken back by the lyrics. i can't say morrison was a god, or even that great lyrically, but he did (as was stated) hit some damn fine points in there. even if they're few and far between, they ARE worth it.

i guess the arguments against them far outweigh the fors'. because time and history have shown us the truth about the people involved and the mythology that still surrounds them, it IS harder to enjoy them as i get older. i still go back, but, it doesn't hold the mystery it once did. i'll be the first to admit, lsd did help, but ultimately i find i go back to the 1st+last albums the most.

the quicklist ranks=
1- s/t or la woman
2- strange days
3- morrison hotel
4- waiting for the sun
5- soft parade

runner up to albums is the live double disc, which has THE best version of "who do you love" evah!!!

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1949235,00.html

I gave The Doors a big chance in high school, when a few of my close friends were really into them. Unfortunately, someone recommended that I buy American Prayer first. That really put the focus on Morrison's retodded poetry, and then said friends kept raving about the whole Lizard King thing, and then I just stopped trying with The Doors. Also, I can't stand Ray Manzarak's style.

Norman's pretty much otm here, but his lounge crooner schtick is why I like them.

I thought I told you to turn the bloody Doors off.

yes, i think i neither like nor dislike the doors, but i kind of like this element

john harris' pieces are all kind of the same. "that zappa eh, he was a bit rubbish", um, you're going to make a whole article out of that? ok, if you like

as said above, the doors are an odd target in their stock isnt exactly high these days

Exactly. They'd be almost as good as the Seeds!

weirdly, the seeds stock isnt that high either, and they're like the best band in the world!

the true geniuses - Lennon, Dylan, Tom from Kasabian

- they didn't have a bass player
- they did that song "The End"
- a lot of people worship Jim Morrison as some kind of "totally deep poet, maaaaaaaan"

You can see how, based on this knowledge, I would think they were the worst group in the history of music. But then one day, I accidentally stumbled into a free show by a Doors cover band, and -- wonder of wonders -- it was actually pretty fun, rockin' music! Still haven't bought any albums, but it made me realize that maybe this was just another case of douchebag fans making good music look bad (cf. Pitchfork Kid A review that made me want to never listen to music again)

did jim morrison even inflict any of his (non-musical) poetry on the public before he died?

Wasn't he focusing primarily on poetry when he was in Paris?

Wiki says An American Prayer was recorded during a 1970 "poetry session".

After Morrison's death, Iggy was considered as a replacement for Morrison; the surviving Doors gave Iggy some of Morrison's belongings, and hired him as a vocalist for a series of shows.

News to me!

Sorry but Roadhouse is so good

let it roll baby

This band won me over in the end - sure, not everything they did was great, but their best stuff was truly wonderful.

. Fine. I won't hate the Doors.

I only lke listening to three Doors songs: peace frog, riders on the storm and crystal ship, mainly because I love the basslines in them. None of those are in that list :(

I know “light my fire” and “the end” are two of their most emblematic songs but they bore me so much, I can’t even think about them without feeling slightly bored. They’re boring in a dreadful kind of way.

Nile Rodgers picked "The End" as his #1 Desert Island Disc for the BBC, which genuinely surprised me. He was having some kind of formative LSD experience the first time he heard it.

Even snoring has the potential to sound interesting on LSD though.

And there is another point. No matter how spoiled, vengeful or self-indulgent any supposedly titanic talent may be, the true geniuses - Lennon, Dylan, Tom from Kasabian - always exhibit some thread of empathetic humanity

i couldn't remember who kasabian were so i googled them and discovered that they are, in fact, the band that has been "described as a mix between The Stone Roses and Primal Scream with the swagger of Oasis."

the Doors are so great

ventured into barnes and noble yesterday. they had this in the racks. pricetag? $21.99.

fucking lol

Even in my most enthusiastic Doors phase Light My Fire has always bored me. Strange Days is a good album and I still smile whenever LA Woman comes on.

they were so audacious in every sense of the word, so incredibly ridiculous and sometimes beautiful and terrible and amazing and lame, the whole idea of the Doors seems like it never should have existed, psychedelic questers and low barroom drunks, proggy organ jackoffs and frustrated jazz welded to hard L.A. sleaze, bad poetry and funky drums and how many bands even risked half as much?

Doing a Doors deep dive at the moment and can I just say how much I absolutely HATE how nowadays they’ve shoehorned in the “missing” vocals in “Break On Through”? “Everybody loves my baby, she get HIGH… she get HIGH… she get HIGH yeaaaahhh”. There is no way in hell those are from the same vocal take. Also fuck all these “anniversary remixes” and “Light My Fire” sped up to “correct speed” bullshit. Buy the original records or the 1988 CDs or gtfo.

Light My Fire is a terrible song

I once accepted a free ticket to see the Doors of the 21st Century with Ian Astbury on vocals, it was unbearable and I had to leave before the encore which was clearly gonna be Riders on the Storm into Light My Fire and I would have died

The best thing about that show was that Asbury gave an interview in local street press (maybe same interview everywhere, I dunno) where he said Jim Morrison came to him in a dream and said it was cool to do the schtick but he wasn’t allowed to sing The End

listening to LA woman recently and having fun imaging Ian Curtis singing it … “city at night - city at night!”

Yes

I like the sound of the DCC Compact Classics reissues for the self-titled and L.A. Woman. Tube mastering, and yes, just as they were originally released (no remixes or flying in those additional bits).

But reservations still remain. I can't listen to "The End" all the way through with a straight face. Best cover ever comes at the end of this sketch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqPB1NlM4ew

love it

looool I had never seen that sketch.

I have the vinyl box that came out 15 years ago or whatever, sounds fine to me. It has both stereo and mono versions of the s/t