Are You Just Another Lost Angel In The City Of Night?

There are few albums that stand up to the true display of stature and talent that a band like The Doors are as on this album. This is truly The Doors at their finest. It may not be the "Break"ing collection that "Fire"d their self-titled debut, it may not be "Drive"ing the "Latitudes" of Strange Days, have the "Unknown" "Caravan" of sound from Waiting For The Sun, the "Wishful" "Touch" of The Soft Parade, or even the great dreamlike "Peace"ful "Blues" of Americana that is shown on Morrison Hotel. But it does have the true charismatic attitude that The Doors always wanted to bring to the studio. I feel that this is their best work. Every song from "The Changeling" to "Riders On The Storm" has a true feel of blues that was always attempted on their earlier works, yet not perfected until Jim, Robby, Ray, and John introduced us to Mr. Mojo Risin. I've been an enormously huge Doors fan since the age of about 12. My hippie dad used to play them to put me to sleep while I was in the crib. So, I was a Doors conaseur since I was young. I own all their albums, their box sets, their rarities, their books, etc. The Doors are one of the greatest gifts that rock has to offer. They were one of the many bands that carried with them the burdens of change, war, peace, love, and rebirth that stood out in an era divided and going in several directions. Few bands have made and ever will leave a lasting impression on music as The Doors have. And they make their final bow with Jim on LA Woman. So turn up the "Texas Radio" and "Love" It "Madly"!

Great Finish

This album is maybe The Doors best album since Strange Days. The album can do without The Changeling, Cars Hiss By My Window, and Crawling King Snake. Been Down So Long, L'America, The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat), and Hyacinth House are great songs to help support the album. Love Her Madly is a great song. The title track, L.A. Woman, is a great song with so much energy, especially with the big build-up during the bridge. The band leaves us with Riders On the Storm, which is just pure brilliance. The Doors finish up with one of their best albums ever.

L.A. Woman ... a classic from Los Angeles

This record is what blues is all about. Pure poetry. It takes someone a quite very few listenings while untill he gets to totaly comprehend and enjoy the Doors' 6th album which is music at it's finest and I might add I am one of them who do choose this 6th Doors' record to play more oftenly on a mp3 CD player than the previous 5. There are 10 songs on this record.



The Changeling. The one who had money, and then had none, and never felt so broke that he couldn't leave town... he is called the changeling... is the song Morrison wrote before he moved to Paris. This song tells a rather simple existencialistic story and could be one of those slice of life everyone's blues.



Love her madly. Plain briliant melody. Probably Krieger's best recording and Densomore's averagest one. A hit record.



Been down so long. A long and slow poor prisoner blues song. Pure magic.



Cars hiss by my window. Anoter blues lament song, this time about a man who is waiting for his baby behind a window where vocal and drums are making dark and rainy atmosphere.



L.A. Woman. The title piece. Pure rock'n'roll. The best.



L'America. Poprock mixed with blues that sounds like a pink floydish improvisation that works out well. A song about a trader and his american travels.



Hyacinth house. Some rambler gambler blues. Beautifoul song.



Crawling king snake. This song features the man also known as The king of lizards, the snakeskin man, the whiskey drained voice singer. The lyrics have AAB blues form again.



The Wasp. Great poem about Texas radio. And the big beat.



Riders on the storm. A classic from Los Angeles. Perfect Manzarek's keyboards. By some coincidence, the last song the Doors made is also their best known and radio's most played piece.



L.A. Woman is the most cool and serious sounding work. Maybe this is due to a fact that this record is the most slow one. Arrangement on this record returns to the roots, there is not much other than 5 musicians here and the band also finally gets a cool bass player for their last record as a whole group besides An American prayer, the last Doors' record from 1978.

Last true Doors record

The Doors last stand. A bit of a departure from the earlier recordings. This was Jim's last recording before his death. A very bluesy effort with a laid back sound throughout. Songs like the Changeling, Love her madly and others are more real and not contrived just for the sake of doing a different record. Jim sounds like a blues shamen on this one. Too bad they never got to build from this one. Riders on the Storm rejoice and pick this one up.

most hilarious album ever?

This album is so bad, it's almost worth owning. Track after plodding track astonishes. When I listen to this album, I feel intensely sorry for the other members of The Doors. An obviously inebriated Jimbo sounds like he couldn't decide whether to throw up or to go to sleep, so instead he went to the studio and cut some tracks. His vocals are shockingly [bad] and painfully off-key. He actually SOUNDS fat! Seriously...check it out! To make matters worse, at least half of the tunes sound like Morrison made up the abysmal lyrics as he went along. There are a couple tunes where apparently the other Doors managed to get their fearless leader semi-sobered up or at least convinced him to come up with some [bad]lyrics in advance (Riders on the Storm being the best of these), but they are the exception. Mostly the tunes are lazy, generic blues variations that a below-average bar band would be ashamed to call their own. And Morrison turns in the least convincing "blues" vocals this side of Eric Clapton's From The Cradle (yikes!)! This is bad, bad stuff. That said, it's pretty [] funny if you have a perverse enough sense of humor, and it's a great party album if your friends have a similar sense of humor. I guess nothing's all bad.

The Doors finest album

The Doors final album with Jim Morrison (they would go on to record two more albums as a trio), remains their masterpiece and belongs in every rock collection. From start to finish, the album is brilliant. It was the Doors at their absolute best. The Doors previous albums ranged from very good to classic, but their sixth album "L.A. Woman" was their crown jewel.



It's common for most bands to start out playing the blues and then evolve into a musical style/idenity all their own. In this sense, the Doors sort of evolved backwards. They started out playing crazy, psychedelic music, and then ended their career playing the blues.



"L.A. Woman" is a very bluesy album. It's not pure blues (B.B. King, Ledbelly), but it's rock tinged with blues. The band never sounded better. To be sure, the Doors albums were always terrific, but they sounded most at home with the blues. Playing blues rock brought out the best in all the Doors members. Ray Manzarek (organ) and Robby Krieger's (guitar) solos worked perfectly against a blues backdrop. Drummer John Densmore's jazzy style was also well suited for the blues.



As for Jim Morrison...I think the Jim Morrison of 1967 was best suited to sing psychedelic acid rock. His ultra-cool swagger and showmanship was the ultimate voice for such music. But the Jim Morrison of 1971 was a much different person. In four years, Morrison aged a lifetime. In 1967, he sounded and looked 23. In 1971, he looked and sounded like an old man. It's hard to believe that the same voice that sang "Light My Fire" sang "Riders on the Storm" only four years later. On "L.A. Woman," Morrison sounds worn and tired, but it matched the bluesy-jazzy downbeat music perfectly. Morrison's finest poetry was also in this swan song. Noting too obscure or bizarre to be found. It was his most honest, straightforward work.



"L.A. Woman" is simply The Doors finest collection of songs. There is no filler to be found. Each song is a jewel on The Doors crown creation. From the opening "The Changeling," to the closing "Riders on the Storm," every song is great. Whether is be the hard rocking "Love Her Madly," the downbeat "Cars His By My Window," the bohemian "The Wasp" or the sublime "Riders on the Storm," every song is a masterpiece.



The general theme of the album seems to be the underbelly of L.A. in the early 70s. The album seems to function as a snapshot/soundtrack of that time and place. It's all about living day-to-day, strung-out, alone, not knowing when it will all end. In that sense, I take "LA Woman" to be sort of like a diary in the lives of Jim and (his wife) Pam. When you listen to this album, you can feel the longing, the desperation, the torment, the addictions, of that time and place. These songs sound lived in. When you listen to Morrison's screams in the title track, or soft-spoken baritone in "Cars Hiss By My Window" you get the sense that he knew it was going to end soon. "Riders on the Strom" seems to acknowledge and accept this fate.



The Doors "L.A. Woman" is one of the greatest albums of all-time and it is an album that every rock fan should own.