My Amazon Reviews: The Doors "The Doors"

Open and Closed Cases
5 Out of 5 Stars


The Doors' debut rewrote the songbook for how rock bands could behave. Essentially a power trio without a bass player, these four men bent and twisted conventional rock forms and dropped a fully-formed masterpiece on the first try. Jim Morrison exuded sensuality and anti-authoritarianism from the moment he opens his mouth on "Break On Through To The Other Side" and commands his followers to give up convention and follow him into his lizard kingdom.

Drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger added texture more than structure, but the secret weapon was keyboardist Ray Manzarek. His organ and electric piano work often formed the foundations for the rest of the band to improvise on top of. The Doors could then run the gamut of stunning pop melodies ("Light My Fire") to the mystical ("Crystal Ship") all the way to the apocalyptic retelling of the oedipal complex, "The End." They were also fearless enough to take a Kurt Weill song and utterly reclaim it, or make Willie Dixon's "Back Door Man" into a psychedelic blues rivaling Janis Joplin.

If there was any problem with "The Doors," it was that it's too perfect; The Doors had a hard time living up to the aftershock. Still, this was the birth of an American Classic Band, and "The Doors" maintains its potency 40 years later.