The Doors - The Doors
(1967)
Tracks
1 Break on Through (To the Other Side) 2:30
2 Soul Kitchen 3:35
3 The Crystal Ship 2:34
4 Twentieth Century Fox 2:33
5 Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) 3:20
6 Light My Fire 7:08
7 Back Door Man 3:34
8 I Looked at You 2:22
9 End of the Night 2:52
10 Take It as It Comes 2:17
11 The End 11:43
In January 1967, a band was let loose on the world from their base in California, mixing Psychedelia with Jazz; Blues with Poetry, the record buying public must have heard nothing like it before. The band in question was of course
The Doors, and their catapult was their self titled debut album; a thrilling record brought to you by the good people at Elektra Records.
Nothing sums up the brilliance of this debut more then the three opening tracks, three songs which sum The Doors' whole career up perfectly.
The opener,
Break on Through (To The Other Side), is more like a manifesto or a call to arms than your typical opener. Instead of being your typical track one, what it is instead is Jim Morrison screaming to us to change our ways and take a different view on things. It really is a belting song and screams out, HEY LOOK AT US!!
Track two,
Soul Kitchen, would in later years come to be called your typical sleazy Doors' song, with Morrison being romantic as ever accompanied by Krieger and Manzarek providing the dirty bluesy backdrop.
Track three,
The Crystal Ship, is gorgeously poetic and beautifully structured, demonstrating that The Doors had several more strings to their bow than the other '67 Californian Psychedelic bands.
The next highlight for me is track five, a song I have loved since being a kid. Thanks to my mum letting me listen to such a song,
The Alabama Song has probably gone some way in making me the man I am today, a song about the lust for whiskey and women didn't do me any harm and certainly went someway in creating Jim Morrison the Legend, and the next few tracks didn't do much harm to that Legend either.
Light My Fire is just fantastic, and my words really wont be able to do this song justice so I will not bother,
Back Door Man, is yet again another insight into Morrison's character, but the rest of the band it must be said are crucial in making these songs what they are, and what they are is Psychedelic, Bluesy, Jazzy and more thrillingly..... absolute filth. That's probably where I should end this review, but what of
The End?
Well
The End is 11 minutes of dramatised story telling, slightly pretentious, slightly strange, but after the previous 10 tracks on the record, you're kind of ready for it.
The Doors by The Doors is one of the best debuts ever released, I am not just saying that, it really is, if you haven't got it, buy it, its shockingly cheap so well worth a look and is an excellent place to start your Doors' adventure.
Enjoy