1001 Albums Summary

this is one of the few doors albums from their peak run that i hadn't heard prior to the challenge. definitely their bluesiest material; the 12 bars hang deep over a lot of the songs here, and having 4 of those songs in near identical keys front to back opening the record could be a rough sell for those who want a bit more melodic and harmonic variety. the album then threatens to get more interesting with that truly ugly opening on the title track, only to basically move to a 1-chord blues!!!! it's absolutely absurd! and this partially ties into something that i think is really missing from here as compared to my favorite doors albums: ray manzarek. jim morrison is obviously the heart of the doors in a lot of ways, but manzarek is the soul with him too. the best doors songs allow that dude to go completely insane on the organs, both with his tone and with his weird melodic instinct. have you ever thought about just how ridiculous the opening of light my fire is? well, you will listening to this because he's mostly absent from the album and when he is here, he's actively de-emphasised! a baffling decision to be honest, because while the doors are one of THE rock bands, they were never a guitar band. jim morrison was, as i understand it, in pretty bad shape especially with regards to alcohol around this time, so it's a marvel that his performances here sell the hell out of what are some kind of uninspired lyrics. the self-titled has this masterful narrative arc of describing a party at the end of the world and he lives up to the title of rock poet so often that these songs feel really underwritten by comparison. the self-titled subverts traditional party blues expectations so much that seeing this record play them straight is kind of disappointing. and i'm not touching the wasp lol. there are some moments i like here. the creeping quiet of cars hiss by my window and l'america are both quite effective, at least until the latter turns into YET ANOTHER boring blues song for a brief moment. and like, the recording quality of these songs is very good, so everything thumps and rollicks like it's supposed to. it just lacks a lot of my favorite parts of the doors.

paul isn't quite bruce dickinson, but he really does acquit himself quite well singing these songs. his lower range is the thing he has over dickinson; the falsetto is no match, however. and these songs all kick ass too! it's definitely not quite fully formed maiden; you can hear the connection to a lot more of the traditional heavy metal and even the punk rock that had emerged a couple years later. it's those slightly scuzzier guitars and the recording that isn't super hi-fi. and when the hooks are still here to a decent extent, it's really hard not to like this!