Saturday, May 28, 2011

Reframing....The Doors. A friendly, light pop group.




I have a past with The Doors. I guess I shouldn't be ashamed, because a lot of people do, and a lot of people have never gotten over their Doors Phase. But they were my first seriously favorite band, beginning in 6th grade, when I asked for The Best of The Doors on cassette for my birthday. A year later, I had listened to everything they'd released, read two books about them,  and had a big Morrison poster greeting me when I walked into my room (and sometimes freaking me out at night). Also, I learned to play the drums by drumming on my bed along with all The Doors' albums. By the end of 8th grade I was pretty much off The Doors and onto other things.

These days, there will be maybe one or two random days per year where I'll suddenly have an inkling to listen to ten or twelve Doors songs. This year, when I was compiling a playlist from the Doors on my iTunes (and I've pretty much amassed most of the studio stuff over the last few years, via one source or another), I realized that all the songs I wanted to hear were the ballads/bubblegum/lite jazz-pop songs from each album. I thought how funny it is that so many "easy listening" songs were recorded by a band whose legacy is DEEPDARKDANGEROUS.


I thought it'd be fun to share this playlist, along with some pictures showing the band in a friendlier light.


So, let's now step into Brian's Revision Machine and check out this band called The Doors.
Have you heard them? They were like this soft pop band from LA who were pretty good, despite the somewhat cheesy sex symbol front guy, Jimmy. He was kind of like their Davy Jones, but he did write some good lyrics occasionally, when he wasn't busy getting kissed on the cheek by teeny boppers and making them scream. They broke up after 5 years when Jimmy wanted The Doors to do a semi permanent Vegas residency, a la Elvis. He figured, if Elvis could get fat and still be loved by that audience, well then, he could too. So he went solo, but was eaten by a giant lizard on his way to his first gig in Vegas. Or did he? The legend continues....









 The Doors--20 Solid Gold Smash Hits
  1. Twentieth century fox--The Doors 
  2. The Crystal Ship--The Doors    
  3. I Looked at You--The Doors 
  4. Unhappy Girl    Strange Days
  5. Love Me Two Times    Strange Days
  6. You're Lost Little Girl    Strange Days
  7. Hello, I Love You  Waiting For The Sun
  8. Love Street      Waiting For The Sun
  9. Summer's Almost Gone      Waiting For The Sun
  10. Wintertime Love  Waiting For The Sun
  11. We Could Be So Good Together    Waiting For The Sun
  12. Tell All The People       The Soft Parade
  13. Touch Me      The Soft Parade
  14. Wishful, Sinful     The Soft Parade
  15. Blue Sunday       Morrison Hotel
  16. Queen Of The Highway    Morrison Hotel
  17. The Spy     Morrison Hotel
  18. Love Her Madly      L.A. Woman
  19. Hyacinth House      L.A. Woman
  20. Riders On The Storm     L.A. Woman

We're back...It was smooth and friendly and went down easy. No?  No one's killing their father or screwing their mother, no butterflies are screaming, no horses eyes are being whipped, no one's having beer for breakfast, no one's got "the poontang blues", no one's got eyes on their nipples, no one's telling you to WAKE UP!!! and giving you a heart attack.
It's family friendly and Jimmy is a welcome guest at anyone's dinner table.
Invite him tonight!
And hide the tequila. It's against his religion.




1 comment:

  1. Great blog by the way. The Doors made great tunes, pity Morrison was such a dick and wrote such second rate teenage angst lyrics (probably why they have such an enduring appeal to that demographic ;) ). I like this opinion though, 'cos they had some great musicians.

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