The Doors by The Doors

To lose one talented rock star to the entirely foreseeable effects of drugs and alcohol at the age of 27 or 28 is a misfortune, to lose dozens of them is starting to look like carelessness.

As with Tim Buckley, Jim Morrison had a reputation of being some sort of mythical shaman poet. However, for all of his allusions to philosophy and classical Greek mythology he was still just a horndog reeling from one whisky bar to the next looking for another “little girl”. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that less than five years after this debut album he would have piled on the pounds, had a voice that sounded like a retired coal miner and be dead in a bathtub. What a waste.

That being said, this album was one of the defining sounds of the late 60s, along with Sgt Peppers and Pet Sounds. Morrison had a great singing voice that was perfectly backed by Manzarak’s hypnotic keyboards, Densmore’s jazzy drums and Krieger’s solid guitar riffs. Lyrically, well, we’ve already covered that, but they had their moments. The End will always now evoke that scene in Apocalypse Now, and Break On Through and Light My Fire are still thrilling numbers.

Aldous-Huxley-tastic!