In case you forgot, the last time I filled in here at Idolator, I caused a bit of drama with my contention that the Doors are the worst band in pop music history. A whopping 134 comments worth of trouble, in fact. I try to be an openminded guy, despite what some of you seem to believe about my cognitive abilities, so I’m giving Jim and his pals another chance today and listening to nothing but Doors albums. After all,if the Doors can nearly sell as many albums worldwide as Boney M, there must be something I’m missing. How’s it going, you might ask?
Eh, OK. I’m midway through Waiting For The Sun at the moment, and the experience hasn’t been quite the aural horrorfest that I would have imagined. But I’m still having a hard time understanding the overall appeal for anyone without a nostalgic attachment to the Whiskey-A-Go-Go. The band does have a decent touch when they can keep the track lengths down to tidy singles, although the appeal of Jim’s habit of repeating the song title over and over with various inflections wears off very, very quickly over the course of these early albums. I think I might feel better about the whole thing if tracks like “Horse Latitudes” showed the band with some sense of humor, instead of some bizarro ’shroom fueled poetic bravado, but it’s not the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, I suppose.
I’ll give you people this much: “Moonlight Drive” is a pretty good song.
The Doors might edge ahead of the Eagles in my book by the end of the day, but there’s still Morrison Hotel to go, so anything’s possible.
Earlier:
You Know Who Really Sucks? The Doors
You Know Who Doesn’t Suck That Much? The Doors.
I’m fully with you on Doors loathing, Dan. When terribly drunk I can almost handle ‘Peace Frog’. Apart from that, they’re about as fun as a late-term abortion.
Nope, they still suck.
Nope, they still suck.
Do this for the Eagles and you will find that they just wrote catchier, better songs than the Doors. Period.
I think you’re still kind of missing the bigger picture, which is that Morrison and the Doors were doing things that were totally innovative at the time but seem much less so today. Granted, there’s plenty of bands that were innovative AND terrible. But the organ solo in Light My Fire alone elevates The Doors into that category of bands which should never, under any circumstances, be compared to the Eagles.
@GhostOfDuane: I get the innovation bit, and I think you could make a similar argument for the Eagles and their country/rock fusion. I’m less concerned about that at the moment, since that’s more of a textbook issue than an actual recorded music thing, you know?
THe Eagles stole the Gram Parsons bag and made it cleaner and more mercenary. Arch songwriters and harmonists, though. And some pretty cool coke-demon session-ace type solos, too.
Dan, I admire your commitment. I once tried this trick with Styx, and had to have my stomach pumped.
Good for you, Dan.
It’s weird, I wouldn’t want you to end up liking or even tolerating the Doors after this - I too have outgrown them and find a good chunk of their output embarrassing. It’s more that, as you’re saying, there’s stuff that works in a ’60s context and a singles context that makes one withstand a lot of Morrison’s bullshit.
I file the Doors next to Genesis in that category of “stuff I loved 20 years ago that I can neither defend now nor completely disavow.” Put it this way — if the Doors were Rev. Wright (before last week), I’d be Barack Obama doing the Philadelphia thoughts-on-race/”he’s a part of me” speech. (Now, if Jim Morrison comes back from the dead and does an interview with the Press Club saying nice things about Farrakhan and calling me a phony, I would have to disavow the Doors completely.)
To take this a bit bigger than just the doors: Just because artist X was being innovative at the time doesn’t mean they are still worth listening to now unless you’re a music history student hard up for a thesis.
There’s plenty of music that wasn’t particularly innovative (Frank Sinatra, for example) but it is something more important: timeless. I’d rather be known to history as a Frank Sinatra than a Captain Beefheart (better still: Frank Zappa who was both innovative AND timeless, but if I had to pick one it would be timeless).
haha well Sinatra was pretty innovative for his time too, actually.
The worst way to experience the Doors is to grow up in L.A. There are a gazillion things in L.A. that brag about how Jim Morrison once took a piss here and there or something, but nothing in L.A. mention the other gazillion crossed paths of music greats, more canonical or less canonical.
I predict 20 years from now, all those “Jim Morrison pissed here” monuments will be replaced by “Anthony Kiedis bought heroin here” monuments.
It makes a guy want to listen to Mickey Avalon.
@mackro: I can’t imagine ever feeling the need to listen to Mickey Avalon.
When’s the “reasons we should punch Don Henley in the fucking mouth” post? At the very least, we’d probably have a better ratio of agreement than on the anti-Doors/Floyd threads.
@StuntKockSteeev: This is a capital idea.
what would really make the video is morrison doing some funky-chicken type dance to the bouncy rhythm instead of standing there like mr too cool
I honestly don’t know who you feel you have to apologise to here. Anyone over the emotional age of seventeen can surely appreciate that Jim Morrison is like if Rimbaud got fat and did comeback specials all his life.
@mackro: Oh God, you just set up my Conundrum O’ The Evening: who do I resent more, Morrison for foisting this shit immortally on an undeserving world, or Kiedis for doing it NOW?