I tend to get rather defensive when people criticise The Doors. They're not the best band of the Sixties. Or even the best American band of the Sixties. In many ways they don't hold a candle to The Velvet Underground. But I wasn't ready for The Velvet Underground at seventeen. I was ready for this lot.
I must have bought all six studios albums within a six month period. I had a Saturday job at Tesco Home & Wear in Teddington that taught me I wasn't ready for a career in retail. But slowly as time moved during those endless Saturdays, it did give me the opportunity to become acquainted with The Doors entire important recorded catalogue as well as lots of other things.
This band, more than perhaps any other, is made for the questing seventeen year old teenager. Pop poetry, but not so challenging you can't absorb it. Darkness that appeals, but is hardly genuinely threatening, though my mother gave one of the records a listen one time when she was tidying my room, and was sorry she did. Great tunes. Tight band that you get the sense could do more if they wished to, but know their real job is to frame Morrison. Good pose.
A lot of people get into The Doors when they're seventeen and regret it later and try to deny they ever did. Me? I'm just glad I went for The Doors and not Van Halen. Sure Morrison could be a bloated bozo sometimes. You don't really need to own Waiting For The Sun and The Soft Parade, though they each have their moments. But the other four are still mean and lean and punchy Rock and Roll. They're also really good fun sometimes. And sometimes they land genuine knock out blows. Just listen to Soul Kitchen, Crystal Ship, People Are Strange, Roadhouse Blues, LA Woman, Love Her Madly or Riders on the Storm and deny that they're pretty damned good. I'm not ashamed of my seventeen year old self. He was onto something.
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