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Recent postings on Idolator have upset the Pink Floyd and Madonna fans out there, sparking complaints about the site’s overall negative attitude and tendencies toward “hating everything.” I can’t speak for Maura, Anthony, or any of the other bylines on this site, but I can assure you I don’t hate everything. I really, really do hate the Doors, though.
Oh, is there a popular act of the rock era worse than the Doors? I’d entertain nominations for the Eagles, but as much as I hate those country-rock cocaine Californians, the Doors have committed crimes of assault upon my ears that cannot be forgiven. Listen to this garbage:
AAAARRRGRGHGGH. I can’t think of anything I’d rather excise permanently from the universe’s playlist, yet it comes back again and again, swaggering with a unique combination of pretension and stupidity that should have disappeared long ago.
I’m sorry in advance for doing this, but here’s Exhibit B for the prosecution:
I don’t want to blame Arthur Lee, but his recommendation got these clowns signed to Elektra, and they still sell a million albums a year somehow. I thank the Doors for one thing only: providing the musical base for Jay-Z’s “The Takeover.” But that’s a case of Kanye West turning coal (to be kind) into a diamond. The Doors were a hacky slam-poetry band that somehow found its way into the spotlight during a time period where A&R guys were taking prodigious amounts of drugs, which clearly compromised their faculties.
Pink Floyd? I’d listen to them any day before even looking at a Doors press photo. Madonna? “Holiday” is my jam.
The Doors are the worst band of all time. Period. And, yes, I’ve heard CCR.
The Doors [Official site, which I'm linking for some unknown reason]
it’s not hating everything. it’s picking things to hate in an attempt to sound cool, but missing by a mile.
An argument can be made for hating the Doors and their often-juvenile “poetry.”
But CCR? No. You are absolutely wrong.
@NotPop: I’d like to think standing up against truly miserable musical acts is classic. People can still like the Beatles because they were great, hence I can hate the Doors for taking a giant crap on musical history.
@drjimmy11: I don’t hate CCR, I just wanted to make people were aware I had already heard their music. I merely dislike CCR’s catalog.
@Hott_Riot: “what could have been genuine empowerment of the new generation”
Naive much? If he hadn’t done it, someone else would have. Don’t believe me? Go to a rave sometime. You’re not the only one who looks wistfully back at a time when people believed in something.
@Dan Gibson:QUESTION: If you had a time machine, would you remove them from history?
Also, Ray Manzarek produced some of my favorite X songs… so there’s that, too…
@NotPop: How many uses do I get from this time machine? Let’s put it this way, I wouldn’t waste any of my first five trips on the Doors. Music isn’t that important to me, to be frank.
but yeah, to paraphrase several people above:
loving the Doors/thinking Morisson was a “poet” is very 7th grade.
Hating the Doors is very 11th grade.
grown-ups realize they were kind of silly but had some good songs, then get on with their lives.
@Clevertrousers: Robby Krieger could probably do a good job washing my car, but that wouldn’t make the Doors more interesting, musically.
As a reformed Doors lover, I’m kind of with you – Morrison is a looker but his lyrics were always poor and his “poetry” was egregious to say the least. But to be fair, the Doors are undoubtedly better than most of the crap folks listen to these days (I’d comment on your own tastes Dan but I can only find posts about things you dislike). Let’s just say that one Ray Manzarek’s organ solo did more for music than Jiggaman’s pioneering of Corporate Rap ever will.
@Dan Gibson: Drjimmy just nailed it by saying you’re “picking things to hate in an attempt to sound cool, but missing by a mile.”
You probably have a shrine to the lizard king set up in your bedroom, upon which you spray your ‘ambrosial discharge’ (thanks contrarian) while listening to an endless loop of the crystal ship.
@NotPop: Seriously, hating on The Doors is as pointless and obvious and hating on Madonna. Sure they were cheesy and pretentious, but they were also weirdly necessary. Kind of like rock had to get something out of its system before it could move on… Maybe that’s my weird ersatz-Marxist reading of the Doors’ place in the evolution of rock, but it just seems silly to hate on them. I still crack a smile when I hear stuff from their first two records, even though I know what godawful doggrel it is. And what’s wrong with a little pretension and bad poetry in rock? Shit, you can pretty much draw a direct line from “Light My Fire” to “Sweet Child O Mine” – and what’s wrong with that?
@Clevertrousers: Nail on head.
@NotPop: Oh dear me. Sorry to inform. The Doors were the coolest band to hate in 2002.
You have an odd way about you.
@Dan Gibson: “Music isn’t that important to me, to be frank”
just a quote for the records..
Trolling the hate-machine to get a lot of comments, eh? Well done.
PS – Steely Dan would be found in my “Delete Permenantly” cache long before the Doors.
I think Dan hit the attitude of the blog right when he said “Music isn’t that important to me, to be frank.” He’s just paying the bills, yo. And this story’s doing alright.
PS: I’m not too big on the Doors, but “Touch Me” has karaoke gold written all over it.
@Clevertrousers:Sure they were cheesy and pretentious, but they were also weirdly necessary. Kind of like rock had to get something out of its system before it could move on.
This isn’t Hegelian dialectic, this is retrofitting.
Oh, Christ. Are we REALLY dipping back into the Steely Dan bag, too?
I seem to recall us Dan defenders drove off the anti-Steely snakes several hundred posts ago.
@Dan Gibson: I doubt it. Kreiger is kind of a surly asshole. He would probably get halfway through washing your car and then stomp off in a huff.
As for not musically interesting, eh – depends on what you find intersting. Hell I think most rock from Chuck Berry to Radiohead sounds like kidstuff compared to Fela, James Brown and Parliament, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have it’s place. And most Fela, James Brown and Parliment sounds like kidstuff next to stuff like Osvaldo Golijov, Gottschalk, etc. And EVERYTHING sounds like kidstuff next to Cuban music. But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it all on it’s own merits depending on my mood…
But kudos, you’ve certainly generated alot of page hits with your post. That’s got to count for something.
@Ned Raggett: Heh… well said…
@TheContrarian: I gotta be honest, I was never a huge Steely Dan fan until I discovered cocaine. Then it ALL made sense. No wonder my older brother hid his shit in their records…
@NotPop: Just to understand: if you had a time machine, you’d use it to solve musical grudge matches instead of, say, stopping any number of historical genocides? I didn’t say “music isn’t important to me”, as it obviously is; just not THE most important thing.
I’m certain there’s more quoteworthy material to use on this site to discredit my taste without having to take my words out of context.
@Ned Raggett: his most recent work is, what, sex and the city and desperate housewives? i’d say his agent is still a little nuts (or rather, they both will take whatever paycheck comes their way, and can you blame them?).
oh, and yeah, the doors blow. but don’t hate on ccr or the eagles.
@Dan Gibson: Dan how dare you say that genocide in Cambodia is more important than “Holiday in Cambodia.” I can never trust you again.
I haven’t heard a lot of Doors album tracks, but I like a good number of their singles. Most importantly, the Doors are just too funny for me to hate. All that baby elephant organ and Jim yelling “cumAWN!” between poems. Maybe if I knew more humorless fans I’d hold more of a resentment.
@Big Gray.: Seconded. I mean, they’re okay, but they’re not legendary. They should be remembered as fondly as an EMF-level band. Besides of the respect that should be doled out to the Doors (and some should) 95% belongs to Ray Manzarek. He carried the whole damn band.
Not that I’m an expert on these things, but weren’t the Grateful Dead establishing the basis of Blacklight Poster rock as a part of the Merry Pranksters before the Doors even met each other?
@Dan Gibson: If music isn’t the most important thing in your life, then why the hell are you a music journalist? Lester Bangs would be spinning in his grave… if he hadn’t been creamated by his freaky Jehovah’s Witness family…
@GhostOfDuane: Ray Manzarek. Better than Jay-Z. Can the next inflammatory Idolator post be about whether my father is leading an army of balding, land-owning white males, hoping to take back internet music discourse with some sort of VH1 Classic Jihad???
@janine: Not really. Both bands formed in ‘65… a banner year for the Black Light poster…
@Dan Gibson: Stopping the Doors stops the genocide of my ears. Burn!
Seriously though, no reason to bring CCR into this discussion. They were the bond between D. Boon and Mike Watt.
@TheContrarian: It was a hard fought battle.
@Dan Gibson: No need to bring genocide onto the palate of analogies.
I was just trying to gauge your hate.
If you have singular most hated band – The Doors
Who is your most beloved Band?
For the record, if I had a Time Machine, I would go back and not click on this article.
@Rory B. Bellows: Not to mention between the Dude and Walter Sobchak.
@Clevertrousers: Ironically though, they were the wedge between John Fogerty and Saul Zaentz.
@TheContrarian: “…us Dan defenders…”
I will never get used to old people on the internet.
@Clevertrousers: Noo, The Dead played under the name the “Holy Modal Rounders” starting in 1964.
@Rory B. Bellows: Heh… and John and Tom Fogerty for that matter…
@NotPop: But would you still comment, like, 5 times?
Jim Morrison is the most important grave occupant in the history of
modern interment. Without him, the Pere-Lachaise would be a boring,
respectful, effete piece of crap. (Suck it, Proust.)
@janine: I think you’re thinking of the Warlocks (which had a slightly different lineup than the Dead). The Holy Modal Rounders were a New York band – Peter Stampfel and Steve Webber – coming out of the same LES scene as the Fugs and the East Village Other.
@Clevertrousers: And John Fogerty and the CCR catalog
Ugh… talking about all this hippie shit makes me feel all dirty. I’m going to go home and listen to some Klaus Nomi to feel all clean and moderne again…
I gotta say, I think people would find them a lot more intriguing/amusing if they were some forgotten ’60s curio rather than treated like legendary icons complete with an Oliver Stone biopic. I bet if Arthur Lee was as famous as Jim Morrison, people would be more apt to dis HIS ridiculous poetry and pretentious songs.
@janine: “But would you still comment, like, 5 times?”
Well how could I??
Don’t you see?
It’s a trap!
And your baiting me back into it, just when I was about to get out!
!!curses
@Bob Loblaw: Back in 2001 I visited Paris and I visited Pere Lachaise. I wouldn’t've bothered with the grave but a friend was insistent I visit for her as she was stuck back in the States, so over I went. Lots of people standing around being respectful but my favorite sight there was the security guard that the cemetery had hired to keep an eye on things — some dude in his forties or so just slouching there smoking a cigarette looking bored. You could tell he was thinking “You people are all complete and utter fools.” He was my hero; I should have offered to get him a drink.
Know who loves Jim Morrison? The beaded necklace makers. Opened their product up to the elusive “Boys” market.
@StuntKockSteeev: Hey, I have all my hair and I don’t own anything. And I’m a fan of Hip Hop too. But what has Jay-Z given us, really? A couple of good albums, many more rehashed versions of those good albums, and a few good singles in between. Him, Kanye and Puffy are the corporate rap pioneers, and they might make good dance tracks (not that they actually make the beats or anything) but the rhymes are weak as hell and frankly, I can’t relate to the private jets and cristal of his lyrics than to the Ten Crack Commandments and Fuck The Police. Gimme a dude with crazy flow like Big Pun or a guy with intelligent lyrics like Nas any day of the week over that slave-to-his-own-ego Jay-Z. But hey I’m sure all those Live Nation albums he puts out will be fire… Right?
@natepatrin: Me. I went through a hardcore Doors phase at the same time I was discovering new wave. Part of being an early-80s kid, I guess. I even wore a Doors square badge for a couple of weeks, at least. I don’t hate the Doors’ music so much as I hate the Morrison hype…but when I want ’60s music with minor chords and eerie keyboard riffs, I have the Zombie Heaven box set.
@Anthony Miccio: So painfully right, Anthony.