#100. The Doors - The Doors

100. The Doors - The Doors (1967) 98/100.  I decided to listen to one of my favorite albums as my 100th review - The Doors.  I'm not going to lie, I am a huge Doors fan.  And, this list has a few on there so I will get to relive some of my youth.  Of all of The Doors albums, I probably would say that the debut album would be my favorite.

Now, my favorite doesn't necessarily mean the best.  You could make arguments for Morrison Hotel, LA Woman, and even Strange Days.  And, I probably would agree that those are all good albums.  But, for me...The Doors was THE Doors album.

I hate to have to admit this, but the only reason that I started to listen to The Doors my sophomore year of high school was because of the release of the Oliver Stone movie.  At the time, I actually took what happened in the movie as fact.  It wouldn't be until my junior year, when I read No One Here Gets Out Alive, that I realized that the Stone film was fictitious.  But, fictitious or not, it did introduce the music of The Doors to me so for that I guess I should be grateful - even though the whole dropping acid in the dessert scene was the most insulting thing I had ever seen (later to be topped by Kristen Stewart's portrayal of Joan Jett in The Runaways).

While recorded over just six days, the songs on the debut album had been in circulation from their live shows forever and makes this album feel more like a live performance than their later albums which were more fine tuned on the production side.  If anything, it is that factor that I probably fell in love with when I was in high school.

Well, it was either the tracks had more of a live feel to them or Jim wasn't nearly as out of control in the beginning as he would be in later recording sessions (when he showed).

While Light My Fire and Break on Through (To The Other Side) are the most popular from the album, the other tracks are definitely note worthy.  How can you not like Soul Ktchen, The Crystal Ship, End of the Night, and The End?  I have a soft spot in my heart for Take It As It Comes as well.

To think there was a time when the word higher would have to be censored due to drug connotations.  A great, great album that needs to be heard by anyone that likes rock n' roll.

Feel free to take a look at the two YouTube videos to see some of the liberties Stone made in his movie.  How can you fuck that up?  You had the tape of the original performance, Morrison does not taunt the camera and dance around like a crazy person.  Why would you make him do it in your portrayal that was supposed to be biographical?  Oliver Stone...sigh...you suck. Listened (most recently): 4/19/2011
Favorite Tracks: All of it.