What's up with hating on the Doors?

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This thread hasn't been that one-sided though - lots of Doors defenders here!

I almost bought a Doors album tonight cos I wonder if I would like them now - it's been so long. I really really love a lot of 60s American music, though not so much the West Coast psych stuff...but you never know.

Tom, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Great keyboard player. Awful singer.

U2 suffer from the same problem. Except they don't have a keyboard player.

Jerry, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

tom it's nice rock and roll. You don't like grateful dead (is it west or east, (was never good at geog). have some nice canadian acid. I'll slip some through the phone line. you will like them afetrwards, no prob.

Julio Desouza, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Why didn't you tell the guy to go home? Wish I knew, Ned. When I lived in Portland I was constitutionally incapable of telling anyone to leave my house. If I knew someone I didn't like was planning to stop by I'd just avoid coming home. For days on end, if necessary. This was some years back so I now find it rather amusing myself. Ah, youth!

John Darnielle, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Amazing! You have the patience of Job. :-)

Ned Raggett, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

lots of use of the word "influence" on this thread, all of them telling us absolutely nothing of critical value

mark s, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

This thread hasn't been that one-sided though - lots of Doors defenders here!
Really Tom? Check these quotations:
I hate them because in my head I forever will associate them with dickheads who smoked too much hash
for me jim morrison handily embodies everything i dislike about "rock" music.
My biggest problem with the Doors in the departments raised so far is that they always seemed to be trying to aim at something grandiose and profound and ended up laughable.
I largely dislike The Doors for the same reason as Ronan
It is the only music I actively dislike.
will young has 20 gazillion time the technique morrison had
Sorry I can't go on. This thread is a joke, why don't we do a Beatles Classic or Dud?

alex in mainhattan, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

''Sorry I can't go on. This thread is a joke, why don't we do a Beatles Classic or Dud?''

Most ppl in this thread don't seem to like 'em but it doesn't mean it's a joke.

Julio Desouza, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

alex my technique quote is not anti-morrison especially: it's a question about whether "technique" is a good thing or a bad thing

mark s, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

What Julio said -- why is hate a joke but love not?

Ned Raggett, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

anyway the thread question is asking for people to EXPLAIN WHY THEY HATE THE DOORS!!?? hence entirely unsurprisingly it is not full of ppl who don't hate them explaining why they like the doors

mark s, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

alex my technique quote is not anti-morrison especially: it's a question about whether "technique" is a good thing or a bad thing
(as a german non-native english speaker) i didn't get that subtlety. so then do you like them or don't you, mark?

alex in mainhattan, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i like all of them except morrison, where i find a little goes a long way (cuz he had a very limited voice, i think)

i do prefer will young's version of "light my fire", because he gets something unlikely out of its chilly self-regard

mark s, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

somehow this reminds me of some joy div threads, mark. but i think i'd prefer joy div without curtis to the doors without morrison, and you?

alex in mainhattan, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

''(cuz he had a very limited voice, i think)''

this is just not true on the first alb. i'm not saying its great but then again how many rock vocalists were really 'accomplished'?

julio Desouza, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

iggy pop obv

mark s, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

other voices = doors w/o morrison surely? as i recall rather boring, but i haven't heared it for many many years

i was thinking of mentioning curtis: an even more limited singer, in a way, but i think the tension — between reach and grasp — works well for the actual material jd recorded

mark s, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

iggy's vocals are overrated, which was my point in the stooges thread, but they are still as OK as Morrison's.

Julio Desouza, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(I think Echo & the Bunnymen were MUCH better that The Cure BTW)

Norman Phay, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

mark s iggy's delivery of "gimme danger" on raw power puts all your there-is-no-such-thing-as-influence spiel to lie 'cos you know iggy never delivers that vocal like that unless he's listened to the first two doors albums like twenty thousand times

John Darnielle, drinkin' vodka since mid-day, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

why are you so cynic, mark? actually i don't want to know.

alex in mainhattan, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

in rock, from JD, the doors, stooges, they all not that great but then that's not the point. The q is: what is there at the end once you combine x vocals with y band?

Julio Desouza, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I think Echo & the Bunnymen were MUCH better that The Cure BTW Norman this is heresy

Ned back me up here

John Darnielle, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i'm not a cynic at all, alex, why do you think i am

i love it when people try to "disprove" my point about influence by saying that someone sounds like someone else and probably listened to him a lot: YES I KNOW THAT!! SO WHAT!! WHAT HAVE YOU ACTUALLY SAID JOHN? OF WHAT CONSEQUENCE OR INTEREST IS THAT? The reason "influence" does not exist is that EVERYONE stops right at the point where you have to say the interesting thing: viz WHY IT IS EVEN SLIGHTLY RELEVANT THAT YOU JUST MENTIONED THAT?? if there is a point ever being made with "influence" talk, why is it never reached?

mark s, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

T|-|3 C|_|R3 |\|3\/3R \/\/R0T3 THE KILLING MOON though, did they? Eh? EH? ARGUE W/THAT!!!!!

Norman Phay, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

influence may be a dud as a 'critical strategy' but that will not tell us whether it exists or not.

Julio Desouza, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

it does not have to: i did

mark s, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

but that may not make it right. It makes it wrong.

Julio Desouza, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

julio are you drunk as well? that makes no sense...

mark s, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

if there is a point ever being made with "influence" talk, why is it never reached?

Evidently only because you say so, Mark, which isn't sporting: Ian McC's vocal style never comes into being without a model, any more than trigonometry can avoid the influence of triangles

John Darnielle, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

well, I'm tired and writing shit again and not thinking straight (which i mostly nevah do). you guys carry on...are you drunk then mark?

Julio Desouza, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'll put a stop to this.

Michael Daddino, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

so why not say MODEL then? i haf no problem with that: it's potentially interesting and precise, not vague and meaningless => what is the precise concrete point you aim to make with yr model talk? model also of course (quite correctly) switches the agency to mccullough, where it belongs: mccullough is after all making the decisions

i shall draw a veil of the trig-triangle sentence, since it introduces a NEW and hitherto UNRECOGNISED usage of influence which will merely add to our griefs...

mark s, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

haha i am not drunk julio, unless you count the intoxication of familiar perversity

mark s, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Absolutely Mark but you & I have been over this before: it's comparable to Hegel & his master/slave dynamic stuff: i.e. the latter term wields all the geniune power because the former is nothing without him. For you the word "influence" seems only capable of bearing one usage, namely that of a power dynamic in which the influence holds a conscious sway over the influenced. But if you're that into semantics, consider the etymology: the flow of a river influences the movement of its tributaries, yet only poets & the insane attribute (attribute ?) o no!) any conscious agency therein -- but be that as it may, the influence is visibly there

by which I mean that the semantic difficulty seems a personal issue -- Ian McC models his delivery on Morrison's, Morrison influences McC -- the glass is half-empty, the glass is half-full

John Darnielle, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

well yes john if "for me" means exactly the thing i am fighting: i wish it were true that these two usages were even EQUAL in the critical whatever (half vs half), but they are not. the one i object to is everywhere; the one that actually leads to thinking about why someone decides to listen to someone else, or to sound like someone else, is almost never followed up... this is why i object to it, it's shutting a door you're pretending to open, rendering passive something that only has interest at all when it's active

the ppl an artist influences are the ones who go on to do nothing but listen passively; the ones who go on to do things themselves are the ones s/he NO LONGER influences

mark s, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

the position of the stars = time for bed

mark s, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well then for the record let me state that

1) when I talk about influence I am talking about what an artist does with his/her models -- how he/she puts them into play, NOT describing some situation in which say Ian Curtis flexes his scrawny muscles FROM THE GRAVE

2) when I am describing somebody who has elected to model themselves after another and not done something interesting with it I tend to use the word "damage" and urge others to do likewise and

3) there is a need for more vodka around here, who's with me

John Darnielle, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

and good-night to you sir as for me well it's early yet out here in the humid flyover

John Darnielle, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I went through the big classic rock faze in jr high and of course loved the Doors. The records sounded neat to me. Howevah, I never paid the lyrics much attention. Then, some time after this faze passed, I picked up (one of?) Jim's poetry book(s?) on a whim and made the mistake of actually reading some of it. Then I went back and took a serious listen to their records (er, the lyrics) and had a good laugh.

I do not hate the Doors.

I do not exactly love them either.

I am not ashamed to say that I once loved them.

Plus: Had the Doors never happened, Kyle MacLachlan would've never been able to play Ray Manzarek in a funny movie like The Doors.

Andy K, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'll take the vodka, but I'm out here. *cries*

Norman this is heresy...Ned back me up here

I am much more of a Cure fan than an Echo fan, to be sure -- whereas I scrounged Napster and the like for every last Cure rarity I could find, I just let the Echo box set do that for me, see. And I'm much more prone to putting on Faith than Heaven Up Here etc. -- but I fully sympathize with where Norman is coming from. My good friend Karen feels the same way; Echo were one of 'her' bands when growing up in the eighties, though I'd have to ask her to delineate the full reasons why she has said preference (then again, she might find the thread and do that for me!).

Suffice to say that Echo have their own particular brilliance I will not deny. But Bob and company are on a higher plane for me. :-)

Ned Raggett, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Oddly enough, while I was mentioning to Julio that part of my aversion to the Doors was most likely association in my mind with the meatheads who would yell "FAGGOT" out of moving cars, I just got back from the hardware/home improvement store--surely the refuge of the macho tough guys of today--and what were they playing but The Cure? The Cure: the next gen Doors?

Sean Carruthers, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

sort of like andy I liked the doors when younger. all I ever did was hear them on the radio and on the two-disc best of, though. I don't listen to them any more but if they come on the radio or something I always like to hear it.

I don't know if it's been mentioned much in this (long now!) thread, but it seems to me like a lot of the things people hate about the Doors are painfully similar to all kinds of rock-n-roll romanticism and sexuality and druggy hedonism.

Josh, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

from scores of much-loved and -praised records, I mean

Josh, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

sean- very funny! see, never judge a band by its fans.

Julio Desouza, Friday, 5 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I agree with Mark@pitchfork - I was a huge Doors fan before high school. Now I love bands like The Seeds and The 13th Floor Elevators, and I sometimes ask myself why I don't like The Doors - after all, the keyboard playing etc on some Doors songs is very similar to some Seeds songs. I guess it boils down to that they're just garage bands, and if you hype them up to this ridiculous extent where they can practically buy and sell people, it becomes distasteful and puts you off the band.

maryann, Saturday, 6 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Which means I also agree with Josh and a few other people on this thread.

maryann, Saturday, 6 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

dead fuckign duck

Queen G of the pinched nerve in her neck, Saturday, 6 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

As a vocalist and lyricist Morrison doesn't really do it for me, but I think the Doors musically had a neat sound. I think that's because I have a certain affection for all of the keyboard-using bands of the 60s.

I think Oliver Stone has done more to perpetuate Doors hate than any real Doors detractor ever has. Just thinking about that movie annoys me.

Nicole, Saturday, 6 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Mark - I can't nail it down now why I thought you were cynic last night. It's probably just your way of dissing certain singers which irritates me slightly.

Maryann is OTM concerning Oliver Stone's film. It is probably the worst movie I ever saw. One of the very few ones where I walked out in the middle with a group of ten people. What a load of stinking pretentious bullshit. The drug experience in the desert was the biggest rubbish I have seen in my life. A film made by somebody who has absolutely no clue of drug experiences and rockn' roll. Pathetic. Hollow commercial crap. And the actor playing Jim Morrison was as convincing as if Brad Pitt would impersonate Ian Curtis. Or Claudia Schiffer playing Patti Smith. Falser than false.

alex in mainhattan, Saturday, 6 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes

Meet Me in the Z'Ha'Dum (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 17 November 2022 12:53 (three years ago)

I like the sound of the DCC Compact Classics reissues for the self-titled and L.A. Woman. Tube mastering, and yes, just as they were originally released (no remixes or flying in those additional bits).

But reservations still remain. I can't listen to "The End" all the way through with a straight face. Best cover ever comes at the end of this sketch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqPB1NlM4ew

birdistheword, Thursday, 17 November 2022 14:54 (three years ago)

love it

calstars, Thursday, 17 November 2022 15:03 (three years ago)

looool I had never seen that sketch.

Three Rings for the Elven Bishop (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 17 November 2022 15:09 (three years ago)

I have the vinyl box that came out 15 years ago or whatever, sounds fine to me. It has both stereo and mono versions of the s/t

lets hear some blues on those synths (brimstead), Thursday, 17 November 2022 15:53 (three years ago)


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