Doors, The - Other voices - 1971

[Roland Bru]

If you are members of a rather well known interesting band with a lot of success, largely due to a charismatic singer who writes (semi) profound lyrics and supposedly exposes his private parts on stage to get the concert going, what do you do when the singer dies? You start to sing yourselves!

Phil Collins later showed, when fronting Genesis, that it could be done. You lose some old customers, but you may win many new ones. The Doors were more than Jim Morrisson. Robbie Krieger is an interesting guitar player, the lack of bass was compensated by an organist (Ray Manzarek) who would simply play the bass pedals (besides piano and Bach like organ), and the drummer, Johnny Densmore, was also more than competent. Also, the music was often written by other band members or the band as a whole. There was, finally a strong demand for product, since their last album, L.A. Woman, was considered one of their best. So, rather than going out on a high, the remaining members continued and thereby more or less ruined their individual reputations in the process. This album and Full circle, from 1972) are not available in regular record stores, are more or less ignored by band members themselves and are severely criticised by self respecting music fans.

This is not completely justified. It's not their best music, in fact both albums may very well be the worst albums by the Doors. However, they are not totally without merit. On this album we have the Riders on the storm derived Ships without sails that is rhythmically interesting (mainly due to the organ guitar interplay that creates a gently pulsating effect), with very effective use of background vocals. Also we have the hilarious Down on the farm that in 4 minutes packs a lot of variety, because of its chord changes and mood shifts. It's actually three songs rolled into one. Wandering musician is a nice song, and Hang onto your life that starts with Sympathy for the devil style percussion evolves into a somewhat sarcastic sermon by enthousiastic popular philosophers with the instruction: "Spread your wings and taste the sky"!