4.5 stars - The band's most different album

Soft Parade (1969.) Doors' fourth album.

In 1968 the Doors entered an experimental phase of their musical career. And even though they had obviously shifted the way their music has sounded, their newer stuff proved to be just as excellent as the material that came before it. For the band's fourth album, 1969's Soft Parade, the band took their experimental phase one step further. And to make things all the more interesting, they even hired an orchestra to play on the album! Is the end result one of the band's big masterpieces, or a great blunder in their history? Read on for my review.

As was previously stated, this is the Doors in a wildly experimental phase. Ultimately, this is the band's most different-sounding album, and it shows in many places. The only really big hit to emerge from this album was Touch Me, which still gets played on the radio on a regular basis - and with good reason. It's a catchy tune, even if it is different from the band's other big hits. But, like with any band, there is more to the Doors than their hits! Tell All the People, the opening track, does an excellent job grabbing the attention of the listener and holding on to it. As the album progresses, you get one orchestral-backed masterpiece after another. The band even tries their hand at a country sound with Runnin' Blue. The title track is one of the band's many lengthy masterpieces, and it more than stands the test of time in that it explores a plethora of stylings, and does a damn good job of it. But, the real treasure this album has to offer is Wishful Sinful - my all-time favorite Doors song. This sound actually reminds me somewhat of Electric Light Orchestra, even though it was released two years before that band made their debut. This song, as well as the rest of the album, must be heard to be appreciated.

It's a shame this album tends to get a bad rap from many Doors fans, because in actuality, it is a great album. As with many bands, with the Doors, fans refuse to give some material by the band a chance simply because they are trying something new. Well, I've got news for those people - your music isn't going to get any better if you don't try new things once in a while and take a few risks! I don't care what anyone says about this album - it's one of the band's finest.

4th out of 7 of the esencial Doors' albums

THE SOFT PARADE is the 4th out of 7 of the esencial Doors' albums one should own, but short and eclectical. The best part is that timeles horns pompous opening in the 1st song, following by superb arangements in the 2nd pop rockish song also best heard on right stereo chanell only, but even better part is the continuation of this product. It's the part where Morisons' lyrics begin.



Shaman's blues is just an intro, an insight of 1969 Morison's jubberish american-indian inspired political philosophy rap, to be followed by real gems.



Do it. "ahhaaha yeah please please me"... doesn't that beginning of a 4th song remind you of the most influential record of all times the Beatles' first? This piece is a short simphony in it's 3 minute form, while lyrics are a simple chant that you'd feel Doors have stolen from somewhere...?



Easy ride. Now this song is the real thing, this song is a wild west at it's best, it is the fastest country & western boogie tempo Doors ever made, wonder where they copied this one from.., a film Easy Rider?



Wild child. Another Doors at their best studio jam sessions acompanied with Jim singing Elvis-like religious philosophy inspired style here. Thrughout this album a number of songs is like so many times Doors have, displayed all, rock'n'roll, waltz, march, boogie, foxtrot and indian moon dance.



Runnin' blue. Poor Otis, dead and gone, and now the Doors will bring a jazz big band and a country band, acompany it with Ray's organs, studio bass player, and play soul music for their wifes in red dresses making one of the most unusual funny rock song of all times. What a cool idea.



Wishfull, sinful. And the title song... a surreal finale. Too bad there's just 9 songs here.

How to Make This Album More Listenable

If you're taping "The Soft Parade" or burning it on to a CD, I suggest avoiding "Running Blues." Then find a CD that contains "Who Scared You," a superior song recorded during the "Soft Parade" sessions.



Then revise the song order thusly:



1. Tell All the People



2. Touch Me



3. Shaman's Blues



4. Do It



5. Wishful, Sinful



6. Wild Child



7. Who Scared You



8. Easy Ride



9. Soft Parade



And, voila, you have a more consistently listenable album. It's no "L.A. Woman" or "Strange Days," but it certainly beats "Waiting for the Sun."

la cumbre de the doors...

bueno primero que nada este cd es para personas que en realidad sientan esa conexion con la musica de the doors.... este disco salio despues de el disco de waiting for the sun y para mi en lo personal es uno de mis preferidos.. porque contiene canciones como "tell all the people" esta cancion me gusta escucharla en particular cuando estoy en paz interna total.... mi cancion favorita the doors wishful sinful tambien viene incluida en este cd esa cancion es asi como electrisante porque una vez que la escuchas no paras ni te cansas de escucharla.. y no ahi que olvidarnos de jim's poetry... con la cancion de the soft parade.... creo que esta cancion interpreta lo que en realidad fue la poesia de jim.. de la manera que se inspiraba creo que lo rebela atravez de su voz y lo hace de una manera espectacular.... el disco esta de pelos.. si lo compras no te arrepentiras....

More like "The Experimental Parade"

In 1969, after making the fantastic, "The Doors" & "Strange Days" and the very good "Waiting For The Sun", The Doors released "The Soft Parade". The Doors were experimenting with different types of sounds, and as a result, this album is chocked full of grandiose horns and strings, which on some songs, works well, but on others, it's just tacky. Guitarist Robbie Krieger writes the majority of this album without the rest of this group, so he is most often blamed. This is easily the weakest Doors album, and many people at the time considered them to be pop sell-outs. The album does have a pop feel to it, and over all, is rather bland and lacks punch. Still, one has to admit there are some gems in here.



We start off with the orchestral blasts of "Tell All The People", a decent number, and the horns work well here. The song does however, have some bizarre lyrics (Follow me across the sea, where milky babies seem to be, molded, flowing revelry

with the one that set them free). "Touch Me" was the albums big hit and the horns and strings work to best effect here. The sax solo by Curtis Amy is also very nice. "Shaman's Blues" is a nice track, even if it is rather un-interesting. It is reminiscent of their earlier work with a nice organ solo from Ray Manzarek. Jim Morrison's "Do It" has an interesting rhythm pattern and some nice guitar work from Robbie, but still lacks any real punch. "Easy Ride" isn't necessarily bad, but it is rather silly. "Wild Child" is a terrific blues rocker. It is drenched in terrific bottleneck guitar and great organ."Runnin' Blue" is the worst track on the album. The horns and strings are very tacky and even silly sounding at one point, and Robbie's singing in the chorus is terrible. He has a lousy singing voice (he sounds like an old hick) and should not have sung. "Wishful Sinful" is a good song, but in some places, the strings feel over-dramatic. Jim seems completely out of it, his voice lacks any real conviction. "The Soft Parade" is a multi-piece suite with some interesting sections, the renaissance-feel of the opening part, and the final, cool rocking section. The song feels very disjointed as all the sections sound very different. So overall, this is a weaker Doors album. It has its share of pros and cons. Not awful, but not terrific. I recommend that you get all of the other Doors studio albums before this one.

Phat Parade and Soft Blues

This is a masterpiece...that never was. I am sorry but the opener: Tell all the People, has got to be the most pretencious song on this album. It really goes beyond cheesy. Touch me, well now there is a song to match anything Sweat, Blood and Tears ever did. Actually, the entire Soft Parade struggles to be the Doors and at the same time Sweat, Blood and Tears. Why? It is obvious why Jim Morrison did not want his songs orchastrated..they would loose their raw sensuality. The songs that lack punch here are Robbie Kriegers. They inspire only a subtle muse. Shaman Blues and Wild Child, both by Morrison, clearly display the only direction in this shallow album. But it is not enough to carry the weight. The Soft Parade is weak..tell all the people.

Too much experimentation make this the weakest Doors album

For me "The Soft Parade" is definitely the weakest of the studio albums recorded by the Doors, but I think there is some consensus out there for that idea when you look at how many songs from this album (one) make it onto the Doors' hit collections. The group was experimenting with adding brass and strings to a lot of these tracks and the result is just a bit too jarring for my tastes. "Touch Me" is the big hit off the album, but it sounds too much like something Chicago would be doing with the horns and not the edgy group that did "The End" and represented the best of psychedelic rock music. Ironically, "Touch Me" is the song where the added instrumentation works the best, but that is just another one of those exceptions that proves the rule that you hear about from time to time.



Guitarist Robbie Krieger gets the burden of the responsibility for the down side of this fourth Doors album because invariably the lesser songs are those he wrote without the input of the entire group. "Tell All the People," "Do It," "Runnin' Blue," and "Wishful Sinful" are all at least a notch below being solid tunes, and I swear that on some of these Morrison is just going through the motions of singing them, probably because except for "Do It" he did not write the lyrics. The last of those four is the best of the bunch, but the strings just sound tacky. Morrison wrote "Easy Ride," and it is only slightly better that Krieger's compositions, mainly because Morrison is engaged for once as the singer.



This is not to say that there are not song tracks well worth listening to on this 1969 album. "Wild Child" is a simple but catchy blues-rocker, "Shaman's Blues" has some nice moments when Ray Manzarek gets to do another one of his stellar organ solos, and the lengthy title track (8:36) is another one of the group's attempts to match Morrison's lyricism with the eclectic instrumentality of the group's musicians. This is captured perfectly by the beginning of the track when Morrison's opening scream about not being able to petition the Lord with prayers is followed by a request for sanctuary against Manzarek's harpsichord evocative of the Renaissance. But in the end the only track that is close to be a first rates Doors' song is the big finale, which is still not enough to make "The Soft Parade" anything more than a below average album for the group.