Idolator

For the record, I've seen Robbie Krieger live (very, very long story), and his son is a Jim Morrison look-alike. The son also, as you might guess, seems deeply, deeply psychologically troubled. Guess if your dad made you dress up as his dead friend for money, it might do that to you, too.

I cannot lie: I love the Doors. Without them, the opening to Apocalypse Now wouldn't be as striking, X wouldn't have found their way to my ears, and the Cult wouldn't seem as appealing (they are a poor man's Doors, after all).

When I die and find myself in hell, I will gladly take "Peace Frog" on eternal loop over anything that Fred Durst has penned.

@Clevertrousers: Pal, let it go. It's blogging, not the Arts section of the New York Times. No need to take everything so seriously.

Secondly, I generally only take pedantic advice from people I've actually heard of or know. Just the way I roll.

@Dan Gibson: Heh? YOU'RE sick of the classic rock status quo? Please! How old are you? You missed the worst of it, believe me! But seriously, don't go around dissing key bands in the rock canon and ignoring their influence and then turn around and try to claim that you "spend the majority of my musical time and energy trying to be fair and deliberate." Basically you're just throwing a tantrum against a band you don't like - that's fine. But it's a lame excuse for rock criticism. And the Doors and not a "horrible band" - they're a decent enough band with some good songs and an oversive reputation that's easy to deflate due to their pretentiousness. But you can say the same thing for Led Zeppelin, Rush, The Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, The Who, and just about any other brand name rock band you can think of. Get over yourself, kid. You're not impressing anyone with your tantrum.

My guess? The Idolator people have been talking to the Consumerist people; learning how to generate page views with half-baked negative posts about things that are popular. Good luck with that, guys.

i hate the doors so much. except for yore lost little girl for purely sentimental notagic for small childhood reasons.

I hate The Doors too!

hey guys, what's going on in this blog post... oh

@Clevertrousers: In the context of blogging, a bull of some sort makes a little more sense, no. I spend the majority of my musical time and energy being fair and deliberate about what I do, and I'm sick of the classic rock status quo (see: Pink Floyd), especially showing up in the comments section these days; hence, the post.

I just don't give a damn if Band A or singer B is "influential", frankly, and no amount of name dropping is going to change that fact. Whether my rock crit rhetoric impresses you or anyone else couldn't matter to me less. The Doors are a horrible band. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

@Dan Gibson: Ah Zappa now THAT would have started a much bigger and funnier fight.

I still don't get him, but I know perfectly sane people who think he's God's own right nut.

Best of all, last time I was in the Czech Republic (maybe a year ago), they were STILL playing Zappa on one of the biggest Czech radio stations as fucking POP MUSIC. There's something seriously dislocating about hearing Frank Zappa sandwhiched between Madonna and Ace of Base.

You had me, and then you said this: "The worst band of all time. Period. And, yes, I've heard CCR." And I remembered that even clueless idiots are right sometimes.

@Dan Gibson:

...Just because someone is "influential" doesn't make him interesting or good...

I think you're confusing your personal preferences with what makes something interesting. This is a seriously lame argument - by definition if someone was influential (and Morrison most certainly was - hell you couldn't have had everyone from Iggy Pop to the Cure without him), they were interesting to SOMEONE. Just not you. Which is fine. But stop speaking ex cathedera on the subject, it just seems silly.

@NotPop: Way, way ahead of you: [idolator.com]

@Dan Gibson: heheh... ask for more money... in journalism? Now THAT'S funny...

@Dan Gibson: Heh heh... Lester is both the scourge and Patron St. of music journalism... welcome to the club...

@bcapirigi: Morrison wasn't attractive until he got fat and grew that huge beard.

@Captain Wrong: It's all been a bit confusing to me, to say the least.

126 (now 127) comments about the fucking Doors in 2008? Are you kidding me? And all these people I've never (or rarely) seen comment here...do people just lay in wait for shit like this?

Two good things about the Doors, Jose Felicanio's Light My Fire (a million times better then the original. Sounds like there's some actual passion in there, not just druggy recitation of the lyrics.)

Second is the comment directly above mine.

Here is a point no one has ever adequately answered for me: If the Doors were such an amazing band, how is it that none of the remaining members has had any significant career since. You can argue whether Morrison was also an over-rated hack (he was) but clearly the rest of the band were mediocre on their own.

My general rule is: If it plays on Classic Rock stations, it's probably garbage.

i think the doors are okay, but i always thought of them mostly as 'the way teenage boys could channel their homoerotic feelings if they weren't athletic enough for the wrestling team.'

of course, it would help if jim morrison had actually been attractive.

@AL: I know, right? People are crazy.

Janine's EMF reference made everything clear to me: when I was in junior high, I rocked that EMF cassingle like nobody's business. I also bought/scammed a Best of Doors through BMG mailorder music service.

15 years on, I wouldn't rate either band as good but they are both, ironically or otherwise, FUN.

Guns n' Roses, on the other hand, is just pure suck.

@Ned Raggett: Missed all the comments "fun"
after I left work last night, but for what it's worth, my stop at
Pere-Lachaise was one of my top-5 most depressing cemetary visits ever.
A rave kid wrote Aldous Huxley quotes on the tombstone in fluorescent
chalk, while two drunk Canadians belted out the wrong words to "Wish
You Were Here." It was 11 in the morning and there was an actual burial
taking place 50 feet away, which no one noticed.

I don't even like the Doors much, so really, I have no one to blame.

Too bad he died before morphing into the "Lounge" Lizard King. What a bunch of hacks.

@Elijah-M: Pageviews aren't a huge concern of mine (which you probably can guess by the topics I choose to write about), but then again, I'm a temp, so I miss most of that drama.

Also, Maura and I have never had a conversation about trying to increase traffic with my stuff ever, and I think I probably have the most guest stints around here.

Nice try though. I've always wanted to be part of a conspiracy theory.

Wait, I like The Doors now.

But I think music SUCKS.

It honestly blows my mind how seriously people are taking this.

@Maura Johnston: Yes, Maura, I believe in you. That's not necessarily a compliment.

@AltheaCabbichoke: agreed! But I'll admit I, too, liked them at 15.

@Elijah-M: 1, i don't work with those dudes anymore, 2, peep the timestamp on this:

[twitter.com]

i wish i had enough time to do evil semi-genius planning like the kind you outline. but thanks for thinking that i can, maybe?

@NotPop: My beef is just with this pointless "god do I hate this 40 year old band" type 'journalism'

Hey, I don't hate the 40 year old band. I hate the iconophiles. Regrettably, their numbers seem to increase.

@Dan Gibson: Yep, done. I'm tired.

Now do a post on the 77's. Spread the good word.

Chris N.: [i26.tinypic.com]

@NotPop: There's few more tired arguments than the "you have to see them live" gambit. There are certainly bands that are better live than on tape, but "Love Me Two Times" isn't going to get any better when The Lizard King is showing everyone his wang. Seriously.

Just because someone is "influential" doesn't make him interesting or good, and if this is supposed to be "journalism", I'm going to ask for more money.

Done, and...done.

Funny how beating a sacred cow sounds just like beating a dead horse.

@Dan Gibson:"The 77's are my most beloved band"

Now there's a underrated band.

But, you do realize that Jim Morrison's vocal style was an influence on Michael Roe's? Particularly on "Ping Pong over the Abyss"

Jim Morrison was an influence for so many good bands, like him directly or not, he must have been an engaging front man. Of course you don't get a front man on record do you? Which is why I think it's pointless to disregard them without seeing them live. Which I haven't. Have you Dan?

For the record: I never got into The Doors, not even when I discovered bongs and tie-dye in high school. My beef is just with this pointless "god do I hate this 40 year old band" type 'journalism'

@whoneedslight:

Man I was so excited when I got my hands on Shepard's Dog, especially after hearing Boy With A Coin. But the album just couldn't cut it for me. Sucks man. I would blow the dust off the case and give it a spin tonight, but unfortunately, it's Super Tuesday:

[idolator.com]

@Anthony Miccio: 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.

Yeah, right up there with Ultimate Spinach

@Tauwan: Oh man, don't drag the Beatles into this thread or it will never end.

Good bands vs. bad bands, so arbitrary and personal! I was a Doors lover in HS and I can't listen now, but I can't tell all the lovers that they're wrong. As an example, I like Steely Dan and I like Iron & Wine, but I thought Shepard's Dog sounded like REALLY BAD STEELY DAN! Am I going to music blogger hell?

Sgt Pepper... Outstanding album. You should listen to it. Right now.

@GhostOfDuane:

Wow man. Just wow.

And just for shits and giggles let me just go on the record and say that my life would be that much easier if the "powers that be" allowed me to enjoy the catalogue of those mighty paeans of rock, The Beatles, on my own time. I swear if I have to be reminded of how great Sgt. Pepper was for the community one more time...

@mike a: Zappa fans do a fine job indicting themselves.

@mike a: You wanted the Trolls...You got the Trolls!

A-fucking-men. God, I hate The Doors.

thanks for writing this. i wholeheartedly agree. i like the doors for their
influence on the stooges, but have no interest in listening to an album of
theirs.

You know what? This has turned out to be a semi-serious discussion. If you want the trolls, Idolators, you may consider dissing Dave Matthews. Or Zappa (cue endless posts about "you just haven't heard the right stuff!").

@NotPop: You really should get yourself a blog. It's good times.

The 77's are my most beloved band, but not entirely due to their musical output.

@Clevertrousers: Oh, Lester Bangs. I enjoy cough syrup abuse probably more than anyone, but if I never hear that guy's name again, all the time I've invested getting "clear" through Scientology would finally pay off.

@nearly everyone: If I counted on blog traffic to pay my bills, the Doors would be the least of my concerns.

The thing is, the music isn't that bad, but then you've got Mr. Mojo Risin' to deal with. It would be tempting to say they'd have been better without him, but Other Voices doesn't bear that out, does it?

Kudos to Manzarek for producing the first two X albums, though. X did a really good "Soul Kitchen" on Los Angeles

@drjimmy11: That pretty much sums it up for me.

@Clevertrousers: Methinks you're right. In any case, the Doors came up at around the same time as the other psychedelic rock bands, and weren't innovators of the genre, let alone innovators of the use of sexual energy in rock or whatever bullshit. That was my point.

@Anthony Miccio: So painfully right, Anthony.

@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.

@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?

Know who loves Jim Morrison? The beaded necklace makers. Opened their product up to the elusive "Boys" market.

@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.

@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

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.

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...

@Clevertrousers: And John Fogerty and the CCR catalog

@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.

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.)

@NotPop: But would you still comment, like, 5 times?

@Rory B. Bellows: Heh... and John and Tom Fogerty for that matter...

@Clevertrousers: Noo, The Dead played under the name the "Holy Modal Rounders" starting in 1964.

@TheContrarian: "...us Dan defenders..."

I will never get used to old people on the internet.

@Clevertrousers: Ironically though, they were the wedge between John Fogerty and Saul Zaentz.

@Rory B. Bellows: Not to mention between the Dude and Walter Sobchak.

@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.

@TheContrarian: It was a hard fought battle.

@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.

@janine: Not really. Both bands formed in '65... a banner year for the Black Light poster...

@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???

@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...

@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.

They laid the groundwork for so much, and helped establish the genre as appropriate vehicle for sating one's metaphysical and sexual urges.

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?

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.

@Dan Gibson: Dan how dare you say that genocide in Cambodia is more important than "Holiday in Cambodia." I can never trust you again.

@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.

@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.

@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...

@Ned Raggett: Heh... well said...

@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.

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.

@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.

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.

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.

@Dan Gibson: "Music isn't that important to me, to be frank"

just a quote for the records..

@NotPop: Oh dear me. Sorry to inform. The Doors were the coolest band to hate in 2002.

You have an odd way about you.

@Clevertrousers: Nail on head.

@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?

@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.

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.

@Clevertrousers: Robby Krieger could probably do a good job washing my car, but that wouldn't make the Doors more interesting, musically.

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.

@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.

Also, Ray Manzarek produced some of my favorite X songs... so there's that, too...

@Dan Gibson:QUESTION: If you had a time machine, would you remove them from history?

@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.

@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.

@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.

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.