News |

Guitar World Column |

Interviews |

Pictures |

Album Reviews |

Gig Reviews |

Release Dates |

History |

Articles |

Setlists |

Upcoming |

Contact

Track Listing: Break On Through (To The Other Side) Soul Kitchen The Crystal Ship Twentieth Century Fox Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) Light My Fire Back Door Man I Looked At You End Of The Night Take It As It Comes The End

The 60s witnessed the development of psychedelic rock in America, and Los Angeles contributed a fair bit towards the movement, not least of which came from The Doors, a band that took the genre to a whole new level and brought it to the mainstream.

Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore lent music to Jim Morrison's poetry and as a result, this album exemplified the true genius of his words. Krieger's simple, pristine guitar sound added its own charm, while Manzarek's piano, keyboard bass and a multitude of other instruments formed a major chunk of the melody. And to round it off, Densmore's drums completed what went on to become the signature Doors sound over the next few years.

I have never enjoyed a lyric-oriented band quite as much as I still enjoy The Doors, this album in particular. Writing great lyrics is one thing, but delivering them is a whole another beast. Morrison handled both duties with effortless ease. His voice has always come across to me as powerful, gripping, endearing, and most certainly magical, and without him this band might well have just faded away without notice, just like the other psychedelic bands of the time.

During live shows, he single-handedly heightened the impact of the music tenfold with his on-stage swagger and attitude. In fact, I would say that heavy metal "frontmanship" can be traced back to Morrison, and he was the first singer to carry himself on stage in a manner that's now typical of countless hard rock and heavy metal frontmen across the planet. There was an obvious degree of nonchalance in his behavior and general lifestyle, an attribute many frontmen got associated with in years to come.

Having said that, The Doors' debut was certainly as much about the music as it was about Morrison, and the amazing variety from song to song was majorly responsible for highlighting Morrison's prowess on vocals . While "Break On Through" is an upbeat beginning to the first ever Doors record, fun-filled slow numbers "Alabama Song" and "Back Door Man", delightful mid-tempo compositions "Soul Kitchen" and "Twentieth Century Fox", and soulful classics like "The Crystal Ship", "Light My Fire" and "The End" just emphasize how diverse yet cohesive this album really is.

Of course, it is worth mentioning that "Alabama Song" is a cover, originally written by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, and "Back Door Man" is a Willie Dixon cover.

With this incredibly stellar debut, the Los Angeles quartet embarked upon a short-lived but much celebrated journey in the world of rock music. In my eyes, such is the significance of this album that if it were somehow taken out of existence, it would result in the total disarray of the space-time continuum of rock as we know it today. A surreal, otherworldly piece of art.