The Doors

The Doors would carry on without Jim Morrison but come on, this is the group's finale. Not a great album, but it contains enough stellar cuts to make that immaterial: "Love Her Madly" (which missed the top 10!), "The W.A.S.P.," and the hippy lounge classic "Riders On the Storm" (a wake-up call to off-duty nurses: decline the offer of a free Cutty Sark refill and head home alone).

Besides being heavy in their early days the Doors were funny too. Funnier than a fish. Who
can ever forget those great Morrison ad libs like the one he once did during a lull in "Gloria"
("Little girl how old are you. little girl what school do you go to, little girl suck my cock")?
He was an earnest drinker, which of course helped. Now he's drinking more than ever,
hence there's some material basis for all the laughs. And since heaviness has bee... More >

The tip-off is when in the middle of a lyric about needing someone who doesn't need etc. etc. Jim intones the line "I see the bathroom is clear." That's how you know the "raaght awn"s in "Cars Hiss by My Window" (hiss, huh?) and the jungle talk in "The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)" (wasps, huh?) and even the cover of John Lee Hooker's "Crawling King Snake" (take that, lizard-haters) are jokes. Which is nice, because the band has never sounded better--the blues licks are sharp, the organ fills are hypnotic, and they've even hired a bass player. But if "Been Down So Long" is also a takeoff, I prefer Randy Newman's. And Newman has better ideas about "L'America," too. (Grade - A-)