When they're ajar.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

OK: Very high on my personal list of 'won't go there' bands come The Doors. This is due <b>entirely</b> to over-exposure to their work at school. Blasting Riders on the Storm through study-hall windows into the courtyard was a ritual cliche; along with further indicators of being a total tool: wearing a tie round your waist instead of a belt; wearing football socks (ideally in house colours) with long trousers; paisley waistcoats; joss-sticks;  drinking tea out of jam jars or similar. Half Stalky & Co, half sixties throwback, these tossers put me off the counterculture for life. Other offputting memories = my mum's defence of the Doors ('but they had good lyrics!'); Will Young's version of Come On Baby Light My Fire; lingering association with Vietnam films (c.f. The White Stripes who I associate with the war on Iraq, although I know this is a bit unfair).

Anyway, given Tom's attempt to bring the rock on poptimists today, are there any redeeming features in the work of the lizard-king and his devilish cohorts? Is this another prejudice I need to overcome, or should I retire in satisfaction that I have ALWAYS BEEN RIGHT?

Comments

[koganbot]

I recommend the following experiment: spend the summer of 1975 in Chicago sharing an apartment that has no record player or cassette player but does have a reel-to-reel tape player and three albums on tape: Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water, The Who's Tommy, and the first Doors album. You may have to modify this experiment, in case spending summer of 1975 in Chicago is unmanageable in your present circumstances. In any event, the results I obtained were: Bridge 1 play, Tommy 2 plays, Doors 10 plays. Also would sometimes listen to radio in hopes of hearing Grand Funk's "Locomotion."

First Doors album seems plenty rock to me; at least, it actually rocks, which is why I kept playing it. Think of Morrison as a less-talented Orson Welles. Pretentious but effective.

How does one dislike the Doors but manage to tolerate Joy Division? How does one like Alice Cooper's "I'm Eighteen" and "School's Out" but dislike the Doors' "Light My Fire" and "Break On Through," both of which have better rhythm than the Alice Coopers? (This question is only directed to people who tolerate Joy Division and like "I'm Eighteen" and "School's Out.")

Also recommended: Jay-Z's "Takeover."

The Coop At His Finest

[koganbot]

Somewhat off-topic, but you will enjoy this classic Alice Cooper performance.