The Doors | 
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| Artist: The Doors
Label: Rhino / Wea
Category: Music
List Price: $11.98
Buy New: $6.01
You Save: $5.97 (50%)
New (46) Used (24) Collectible (2) from $5.00
Rating:  34 reviews
Sales Rank: 8852
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 101184
UPC: 081227999834
EAN: 0081227999834
ASIN: B000MCIBE8
Release Date: March 27, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Break On Through (To The Other Side) | | • | Soul Kitchen | | • | The Crystal Ship | | • | Twentieth Century Fox | | • | Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) | | • | Light My Fire | | • | Back Door Man | | • | I Looked At You | | • | End Of The Night | | • | Take It As It Comes | | • | The End | | • | Moonlight Drive (Version 1) (Bonus) | | • | Moonlight Drive (Version 2) (Bonus) | | • | Indian Summer (8/19/66 Vocal) (Bonus) |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
On their 1967 debut album, the Doors more than fulfilled the promise of their infamously challenging gigs around Los Angeles throughout the previous year. Whether belting out a standard like "Back Door Man" or talk-singing such originals as "The Crystal Ship" and "I Looked at You," leather-clad vocalist Jim Morrison exuded both sensuality and menace. The mixture, on the outsize album finale, "The End," helped rewrite the rules on rock song composition. None of this would have worked, though, were it not for the highly visual instrumental work of keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robbie Krieger, and drummer John Densmore, whose work on tracks such as "Take It As It Comes" and the lengthy hit "Light My Fire" virtually defined the rock-blues-jazz-classical amalgam that was acid-rock. --Billy Altman
Album Description
THE DOORS, first released in January 1967, is one of rock music's most famous debuts. It hit #2 in Billboard , and delivered the #1 signature smash "Light My Fire" plus "Break On Through," "The Crystal Ship," and "The End." In-depth essay by Ben Fong-Torres (a principal Rolling Stone writer during the Doors heyday). Three bonus tracks include alternate takes of "Moonlight Drive" and a previously unissued version of "Indian Summer."
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| Customer Reviews:
 breaks on through to the other side December 19, 2008
PeeF (Central Pennsylvania)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
breaks on through to the other side
Notwithstanding what audiotechnophiles may say, "The Doors" classic self titled debut album loses nothing from the transfer to digital media and the listener can now experience to the opus without interruption. This 40th anniversary edition also provides two versions of "Moonlight Drive" and a partial rendering of "Indian Summer", both contemporaneous recordings which did not make the original.
"The Doors" sweeps straight into "classic" status (and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) on the basis of the opening track, the smash and grab, "Break on Through," the pinnacled mid-point ridge, "Light my Fire" and "The End", like Scott in the Antarctic, an inspiring and ultimately devastating exploration.
New listeners should avoid the "greatest hits" urge and listen to "The Doors" from start to finish. Explore the intervening tracks which take the listener off in interesting asides and diversions that ultimately put the three "hits" in relief. Your journey will be rewarded and you will find your own favorites.
What makes this set all the more inspiring is that it was recorded in just a few days, using minimal equipment, sometimes with the first take making it onto the record. Of course in 1966, this was the way that things were done. A band would not "make a record", a construction that occurred only in the studio, they would go into the studio to record what they did, with slightly better sound quality than the live rendering - and, in the case of Jim Morrison, the cleaning up of some of the lyrics.
The Doors were a group of students who met at UCLA, Jim Morrison, vocalist, Robby Krieger, guitar, John Densmore, drums and Ray Manzarek keyboards. Interestingly, the Doors did not have a regular bass player, Manzarek added many bass lines from his keyboard or organ pedals and he adds some "real" bass to this recording along with Larry Knetchel who plays on "Soul Kitchen," "Twentieth Century Fox," "Back Door Man," "I Looked At You" and "Take It As It Comes."
From the opening up-tempo off-beat drum beat and keyboard bass line to the abrupt end, "Break on Through" picks you up and shakes you all about - "...try to run, try to hide, break on through to the other side!" This two and one half minute rocker makes anyones top ten list of "debut album, side 1, track 1" (see the book or movie, "Fever Pitch" if you missed that cultural reference).
"Soul Kitchen", "Crystal Ship" and "Twentieth Century Fox" give the recording the feel of a theatrical piece. The prominence of the keyboard, Morrisons storytelling delivery, clipped percussion and the post surf - pre heavy metal wail of Manzareks guitar give the impression of a pit band or hipster club session. The inclusion of the Berthold Brecht/Kurt Weill song "Whisky Bar (Alabama Song)" only adds to the drama.
One half expects a Jaques Brel tune to follow but a sharp drum beat spins the listener off into "Light my Fire". Being a child IN the sixties I first experienced "Light My Fire" via Jose Feliciano and numerous other covers of less repute my first personal Doors experience would be L.A. Woman when I was old enough to find my own music. For those who have experienced the loungeinized "Light My Fire", the full seven minute original version is a revelation. You need to hear Morrison yell "... come on baby light my FIYERRRR!" to truly get what this song is about.
The majesty of "Light My Fire" is that it is a simple tune, basically a jingly introduction, a repeated riff and a three chord refrain (or thereabouts), which through repetition and adding and removing layers of instrumentation, becomes a complex, almost symphonic work, in the twentieth century style. In the mid-sixties, the extended rock/pop track was still a novelty and the blues based rock bands of Britain and the US were just beginning to experiment with the concept. "Light My Fire" is a perfect platform for the extended solo over the verse/riff, in the style of the jazz greats (Coltranes My Favorite Things etc.) who had led the way during the preceding decade. Manzarek gives us variations on a theme through three minutes and ten seconds, at which point, if you haven't done so already, crank up your machine to full volume for Jim Kreigers guitar solo before the whole band come crashing back together for a final verse chorus. Gold standard.
In the second half of "The Doors" their west coast sound comes more to the fore. "End of the Night", "I Looked at You" and "Take it as it Comes" hint at the darkness of The End (sic.) to come, along with the addled optimism of the age. "Back Door Man" a reworking of the Willie Dixon classic, pays homage to the blues roots of their sound and gives Morrison another opportunity to express his unambiguous lusts.
"The End" is the most overtly theatrical piece, based loosely on the greek tragedy Oedipus Rex with contemporary allusions to drug culture, the developing war in Vietnam and the draft. The piece is largely free form and dreamy, in a psychedelic manner, with Indian raga like guitar lines, a classical organ sound held together by tabla percussion and drum fills from Densmore. The vocal meanders and builds to the disturbing crescendo; "Father. Yes son? I want to kill you. Mother, I want to... " According to Ray Manzarek, Morrison "...wasn't saying he wanted to do that to his own Mom and Dad. He was re-enacting a bit of Greek drama. It was theatre!"
Theatre? Bravo! A tour de force!
Listeners to this version of "The End" should note that this runs close to 12 minutes - not a shortened version, as appears in "Appocalypse Now" for example. Other live and unedited versions are also available, giving a clearer idea of Mr. Morrisons intentions towards his mother.
I was able to scare my parents with The Velvet Underground & Nico records. But the Velvets didn't scare me because I had already listened to "The End"
good collection November 10, 2008
Joe Savino (CT USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
this cd gets away from the tired fm airplay and into some of the longer and more interesting songs
Absolutely fantastic October 20, 2008
Anthony Marino (Charlotte, NC USA)
Although this is the doors' first album, it might as well be a greatest hits. Every song is a well known classic from the genius of morrison and manzarek. This cd is every music lover's dream!
The Doors October 9, 2008
Bjorn Viberg (European Union)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Doors being the doors 1967 release and their debut album. On this record we get many gems. For instance it starts out with a bang with the amazing track Break on through, and then later Light my fire and the strange track the end. Elektra has produced a very sparse but ok book-let. No lyrics inside. Some very 60's looking photos that look very similair to what other artists did at the same time. The lyrics are sometimes very strange. 5/5!
 why? October 8, 2008
The Queen Mum (New York)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
i'm not giving the Doors less than five stars, obviously... I thought I was going crazy, having memories of the original recording being WAY different than this... I thought the "she gets high" repeated could have been an alternate take which they put on this album, but another reviewer says they actually dubbed the vocals and CHANGED THEM....WHY? WHY? WHY? ...will they overdub Hendrix guitar solos next?
They totally CUT UP "the end"...again, WHY? ... I am horrified. ALL the monstous glory of THE END has been swallowed up and disappeared... where did it go? God has left the building...
The Doors get 1,000 stars... whoever made the decision to edit this classic work should have all their toes broken with a hammer, once a year for a thousand years...
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