Doors LA Woman grossly overrated

Uroboros wrote: progismylife wrote: So you are basically saying that The Doors are a bad band because Ray Manzarek made sure Jim was in his band because of Jim's poetry and thats wh THe Doors started - becasue of Jim's poetry. Jim quoted part of a poem he wrote (which later became Moonlight Drive I think) and Ray was amazed. And have you read his lyrics? Those are great poetry. And he kept on bringing up shamans and native Americans and stuff because events he had a traumatic event in his childhood (He saw a car crash that involved a truck with a bunch of Native Americans, who that died - "Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding") And the lizards have to do with the few acid trips he had (I think - its what is put in the few biographies I've read)   Yes, Ray Manzarek's literary taste is most definitely a warranty for great poetry. Of course I know the lyrics, I'm not talking about things I'm not familiar with. There is the occasional nice metaphor, of course (after all, the guy was trying), but there is nothing truly personal in there, he didn't have a poetic voice of his own. And, besides that, writing symbolism in the 1960's wasn't exactly keeping in time with the progress of literature. Actually, you know, if you want to think he wrote great stuff, go ahead - who am I to try to make you think differently?

So what (to go slightly off topic here) is considered good poetry if Jim Morrison isn't considered a poet (in your point of view)?

Uroboros wrote:   Haha, I don't know, about ten thousand other things probably. From the old guys, for instance Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Blake, just to name those who probably influenced Morrison and his generation to a various extents. Or Walt Whitman, I don't know... Then T.S. Eliott in the first half of the past century, Dylan Thomas of course - if I were to try and follow some kind of logical path... or maybe not so logical. And then there was Ginsberg, whom I'm not familiar with, but knowing he was more or less the mentor of the so-called "beat" generation, I would guess he was more than his disciples managed to be. There were many individual voices following valid literary currents in the twentieth century - modernism, surrealism (from which sprang all kinds of strange experiments with form and language like dadaism), later various deconstruction techniques began to be employed, and literature was transformed heavily with the arrival of postmodernism. In a picture of the twentieth century, Morrison didn't create poetry that was historically valid (yes, he was representative of his time and his generation's ideology to a certain extent, but not relevant to the history of literature). His language was not his own and was not up to par with his contemporaries.

Edited by Peter Rideout - March 21 2007 at 15:11

Peter Rideout wrote:   If future generations ever study Jim's lyrics, I think it will be in history or political science (perhaps psychology) classes, not English literature or poetry classes.

I was actually encouraged to read Jim Morrison's lyrics and to do a project on them for the poetry part of my English course (of course it was from a bad English teacher who got fired that  year). I decided to do something more worthwhile and chose Lewis Carroll, Jabborwocky being one of my favorite poems.

Peter Rideout wrote:  Hmmmm... I wonder if the whole "overrated" thing (at least in regard to older albums, like LA Woman) often breaks down along generational lines.   For those of us "of a certain age," we "were there" to experience the impact some of these ground-breaking, "important" albums and artists (ITCOTCK, SEBTP, Foxtrot, Brain Salad Surgery, Sgt. Pepper's, etc.) made at the time, and we may thus often treat the albums with a certain nostalgic reverence. (We rate with a view to the album's place in rock/prog history, and our own lengthy, happy, youthful history with it.)   With NO disrespect intended, I often find myself assuming, when I read some post saying how this or that widely-loved classic is "overrated"  (still hate that word because of what it implies about the album's fans), that the writer must be much younger than I, and just wasn't there to feel what we did when the music was fresh and new, and really stood out from the prevailing norm. (Thus, I tend to take such disparaging, counter to the majority statements with a HUGE "grain of salt.")   I also think,  when classic albums inevitably garner a lot of gushing praise, that new listeners may approach them with the unrealistic expectation of being "blown away" (you'll see that a lot in their subsequent reviews: "from all of the previous reviews, I was expecting to be blown away, but I wasn't), or of having some sort of revelatory, life-altering, quasi-religious experience.   What do others think? Is there a generational, "you had to be there" kind of phenomenon at work in these cases? we see it time and again: 40-something reviewer gives top rating, teen reviewer knocks it down because 'it didn't blow me away."   Or is it just the innate cynicism of youth? Yes, I was a teen, and I have a teenage daughter, so I have some experience with the "everything sucks, especially what you like, Pops) mindset. (I'm not saying this is necessarily a factor here.)   Waddaya say?   (Just checked -- according to his profile, our Mr. Mouse is a youthful 26. He was born well after the Doors' groovy, far-out heyday.)

Cheesecakemouse wrote: ...compare LA Woman to everything else happening in 1971 and it is quite a poor album compare it to the Yes album or Meddle by Pink Floyd

Why compare? LA Woman is a completely different album to Meddle or The Yes Album by a completely (stylistically, culturally & most importantly, musically) different kind of band; you could just as easily compare, say, Zappa's 200 Motels and Aphrodites Child's 666... 2 more prog albums released in 1971 but with no other connection.

it may be 'overrated' but it's a really good record

Not even slightly overrated.

Jim Garten wrote: Cheesecakemouse wrote: ...compare LA Woman to everything else happening in 1971 and it is quite a poor album compare it to the Yes album or Meddle by Pink Floyd Why compare? LA Woman is a completely different album to Meddle or The Yes Album by a completely (stylistically, culturally & most importantly, musically) different kind of band; you could just as easily compare, say, Zappa's 200 Motels and Aphrodites Child's 666... 2 more prog albums released in 1971 but with no other connection.

Edited by Dick Heath - May 18 2007 at 11:56

I wouldn't regard The Doors as prog either, but happen to, besides liking real prog, like this music too. Most likely it also guided my musical taste as a teenager to the more "mature" stuff prog is regarded as.

But for sure I don't like it because of the person Jim Morrison. When I really started getting fond of The Doors, Jim was already dead for 10 years and the radio (in Holland) more or less only played Riders on the Storm and Light my Fire. Now for L.A. Woman, perhaps I'm pre-occupied, since it was my first experience with The Doors and I also "found" this album (living near a record factory that threw away all records with small press defects at a place where I, as a child, could reach it by getting very very early in the morning at the factory premises, risking being kicked off by the not a quite nice security guy). I do not regard L.A. Woman as flat, especially not the title song. However, yes, you can see Jim's demise coming. What is music? Only fun listening, easy music? Or does it also represent an era and life itself in a way, through the people that perform it? The latter is something I do take into consideration when listening to music, in this way extending its purpose perhaps, but making it more interesting. L.A. Woman represents an aggression, a drive (for life maybe? Jim seeing it coming?) that is rather hypnotizing and to my opinion well worked out; raw maybe, therefore real. That's worth a lot I think, especially in a time where instruments have been replaced by computers, taking away the soul of it. But maybe I'm just too old


Edited by jeromach - June 01 2007 at 16:25

Great album its music and i like it. The title track röck so %¤#" hard ! And yeah i love hip hop got any problem with that? Are you the music police or sumething?