A classic rock masterpiece

The Doors (1967.) The Doors' first album.

In the latter half of the sixties, rock and roll was beginning to make serious progress. It's hard to believe that a musical genre that didn't even exist twenty years ago had come such a long way in such a short period of time. One of the reasons that the sixties was so great a decade for rock and roll was The Doors. Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger, John Densmore, and Ray Manzarek were rock and roll geniuses, and there's no disputing that. In 1967 the band released its self-titled debut album. Read on for my review of it.

The band kicks things off with what would become one of the biggest hits songs of their career - Break On Through (To The Other Side.) This is straight-up classic hard rock, the way it was meant to be heard, and it certainly serves as a premonition to the heavy metal that would begin dominating the music industry in the next decade. Soul Kitchen is a bit on the lighter side than the track that followed it, but it's certainly nothing less in the quality department. Why's that? Because Ray Manzarek is a god when it comes to playing the organ. That claim is only further demonstrated on another one of the band's big hits that can be found here, Light My Fire - OVER HALF OF THE SONG IS AN ORGAN SOLO - and a damn good one too! One of the most interesting tracks featured here is The Crystal Ship. This one is slow and ultra-melodic, and nothing short of excellent. There are also two cover songs featured here - Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar) and Back Door Man (the latter of which was originally done by Willie Dixon, a blues artist who has been covered by god only knows how many rock artists.) In my opinion, The Doors takes on these tracks outshine the originals. Twentieth Century Fox is upbeat classic sixties rock at its very best, and in my opinion, severely underrated. I Looked At You, End Of The Night, and Take It As It Comes were never nearly as popular as the other songs featured on the album, but they are still excellent, and should NOT be overlooked due to the mere fact that they were never popular songs. The band closes things with one of their most memorable songs - The End. This song is extremely long and it explores a plethora of styles, making it one of the band's masterpieces. This is a great album, no question.

Overall, I (and millions of others worldwide) feel this is an excellent debut album. It's not my favorite Doors album (that honor would have to go to their sophomore effort Strange Days, released later in 1967), but it's still an excellent album, and definitely my second favorite. If you're a fan of classic rock, your collection is NOT complete without this album.

An excellent debut

The Doors (1967.) The Doors' first album.

In the latter half of the sixties, rock and roll was beginning to make serious progress. It's hard to believe that a musical genre that didn't even exist twenty years ago had come such a long way in such a short period of time. One of the reasons that the sixties was so great a decade for rock and roll was The Doors. Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger, John Densmore, and Ray Manzarek were rock and roll geniuses, and there's no disputing that. In 1967 the band released its self-titled debut album. Read on for my review of it.

The band kicks things off with what would become one of the biggest hits songs of their career - Break On Through (To The Other Side.) This is straight-up classic hard rock, the way it was meant to be heard, and it certainly serves as a premonition to the heavy metal that would begin dominating the music industry in the next decade. Soul Kitchen is a bit on the lighter side than the track that followed it, but it's certainly nothing less in the quality department. Why's that? Because Ray Manzarek is a god when it comes to playing the organ. That claim is only further demonstrated on another one of the band's big hits that can be found here, Light My Fire - OVER HALF OF THE SONG IS AN ORGAN SOLO - and a damn good one too! One of the most interesting tracks featured here is The Crystal Ship. This one is slow and ultra-melodic, and nothing short of excellent. There are also two cover songs featured here - Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar) and Back Door Man (the latter of which was originally done by Willie Dixon, a blues artist who has been covered by god only knows how many rock artists.) In my opinion, The Doors takes on these tracks outshine the originals. Twentieth Century Fox is upbeat classic sixties rock at its very best, and in my opinion, severely underrated. I Looked At You, End Of The Night, and Take It As It Comes were never nearly as popular as the other songs featured on the album, but they are still excellent, and should NOT be overlooked due to the mere fact that they were never popular songs. The band closes things with one of their most memorable songs - The End. This song is extremely long and it explores a plethora of styles, making it one of the band's masterpieces. This is a great album, no question.

Overall, I (and millions of others worldwide) feel this is an excellent debut album. It's not my favorite Doors album (that honor would have to go to their sophomore effort Strange Days, released later in 1967), but it's still an excellent album, and definitely my second favorite. If you're a fan of classic rock, your collection is NOT complete without this album.

Nothing Less Than a Masterpeice

The first album for the doors is amazing. What I really love about the doors is that they could debut today in 2005 and sound new and original. This album is timeless. The only music I can recommend over this album is anything by Robert Johnson, or anything by Muddy Watters. Cream's Disraeli Gears comes close to this one as well. Although many Doors fans will hate this, I think there is way too much focus on Jim Morrison when people talk of the doors. The Doors couldn't have been the doors without him, but all of the other members were just as essential to the band. The only flaw with this album in my opinion are the lyrics towards the latter part of "The End". I think when Jim Morrison goes into "The killer awoke before dawn..." it interrupts the mood of the song. The End musically conveys the concept of time and love in my opinion and adding death and incest just doesnt work!

Oh my!

The Doors Debut album is one to remember. Everything about is perfect. It's hard to believe one cd can be filled with all amazing songs.

Light my fire - a true classic, that can never be touched

End - an unforgettable song, dark, and mysterious... its so wonderful!

Twentieth Century Fox - a feel good song

Soul Kitchen - another great song, one that gets stuck in your head

The Crystal Ship - a pretty, and relaxing song

Back Door man - a raw song, awesome

Break on through - another special song



They're all Great! A cd couldn't get any better!

Part of life in 1967

It sure is a pleasure to reminisce, back to a day when we really thought that "all you need is love" and everything would be all right. Yes, the time between my 14th and 15th birthdays, when Sergeant Pepper was redefining what was musically possible and everyone else was reacting to it. "Light My Fire" indeed!

For Jim Morrison and the Doors, it was an unbelievably creative time, as evidenced by the songs on this, their first album. To say there is not a bad track here only begins to communicate the importance of the record. Some at the time called them America's Dionysian counterparts to the Rolling Stones, and that's a good place to start. Let's just say the Doors showed what could happen when "California Dreams" turned into nightmares, as "The End" so aptly describes.

The gem here remains "Light My Fire", every bit as incandescent as when I first heard it all those 34 years ago during the "Summer of Love." Of course, we're talking about what we then called the "FM Version" with its soaring keyboard and guitar break in the middle. The album snaps, crackles and pops with the bluesy "Break on Through", "Back Door Man", "Take It as It Comes", and such fine rock standards as "Alabama Song", "Twentieth Century Fox" and "Soul Kitchen". Another favorite of mine is the softer "Crystal Ship", and of course, "The End", which later gained new fame from its appearance in the film "Apocolypse Now" (a particularly poignant use of the song I might add).

Another reviewer called this one of the four or five best rock albums of the 1960's. (I'm inclined to agree with that, but completing that list is a difficult chore indeed!) Simply put, Morrison's later death in 1971 would rob the music world of perhaps many other great works to come. For the Doors, only L.A. Woman rivaled this one creatively.

The Doors Kick Off With a Masterpiece Album

A highly successful debut album, "The Doors" is one of the best albums ever by an American rock band. Each and every song, from the perfect opening track "Break on Through" all the way to the brilliant closing song, "The End", is excellent in its own way.



Most casual listeners will recognize "Light my Fire" and "Break on Through", since both of these were released as singles. But these are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this album's listening pleasure. Even though you may not recognize the other titles, the songs are sure to please. They all feature the cosmic/psychedelic sound of Ray Manzarek's keyboards and they all stand out for various reasons as excellent songs.



Deep, inspired lyrics can be found on most every song on this collection. Morrison, with his unusual and often seductive vocals, hits you in the center of your consciousness as he sings, with lyrics that are thoughtful and memorable. The rest of the band adds its own signature sound, coming together to create a masterpiece.



Ray Manzarek steals the show on this collection with his keyboard mastery and he deserves credit for helping to create the band's signature sound for this debut album. He, and the rest of the band, make "The Doors" one of the best debut albums ever and one that belongs in every music fans CD collection.

The Doors' debut album breaks on through to the other side

The Doors were probably more controversial than they were influential, but they were certainly one of the signature rock bands of the 1960s. The group was formed in Los Angeles in 1965 by a pair of U.C.L.A. film students, keyboard player Ray Manzarek and vocalist Jim Morrison, along with guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore. Because the group did not have a bass player their music was dominated by Manzarek's distinctive electric organ work and Morrison's evocative vocals of his evocative lyrics. Signed a year later to Elektra Records with the goal of capturing on vinyl what the group did in live performance, their self-titled debut album featured the hit "Light My Fire" and because of their distinctive sound became one of the best albums of psychedelic music. In fact, "The Doors" was such a great album that it made everything that came afterwards pale in comparison and gave credence to the idea the group was on a destructive arc fueled by Morrison's personal problems and then went nova with "Morrison Hotel" and "L.A. Women" right before his death.



The music of the Doors was a peculiar blend of rock, blues, classical, jazz, and powerful lyrics. Nobody around played guitar like Krieger, while Manzarek's classical influences showed up in his organ riffs, Densmore brought some Latin influences, and Morrison's lyrics contained moments of searing emotional poetry. From the opening notes of "Break on Through (To the Other Side)" it is clear this group is different. For somebody who was consuming mass quantities of drugs and alcohol, Morrison's lyrics were the sort that students should be discussing in literature class: "I found an island in your arms/A country in your eyes," a love that becomes transmuted into "arms that chain" and "Eyes that lie." Then the song explodes into sound as the band announces its presence with authority. This is such a key song in the history of the Doors that there is reason it leads off most anthologies and collections of their best songs.



"Light My Fire," and I can remember finally getting to listen to the long version having only heard the single version with the impressive, intricate organ solo that still stands alone as the epitome of what can be done with that instrument in a rock song. Then Jose Feliciano proved how good it was in his totally stripped down acoustic version. "Take It As It Comes" is also pretty good, even if not quite in that same class. Still, it is the moodiness of "The Crystal Ship" and the "eleven-minute Oedipal drama" of "The End" that defined the Doors as one of the strangest and most ambitious rock groups around. It is impossible to think of another Sixties rock group that was as disturbing as the Doors, an idea codified in popular culture by Francis Ford Coppola's use of "The End" at the climax of "Apocalypse Now." Not only literature classes but future psychologists and psychiatrists could have a field day analyzing Morrison's lyrics as well.