The Doors (not counting post-Morrisson) have six studio albums, I'd put the other four at at least four stars, I wouldn't give The Soft Parade Two.

But yes, the SONG the Soft Parade is good.

I'd say Strange Days is definitely their most progressive album overall, with Morrison Hotel and the S/T being my favorites.  LA Woman closely behind.

 

All in all, i nmy book, just about all of the Doors material fits into "prog" ... a lot better than most metal and prog stuff listed here in this board!

 

I always thought that the long cuts they did were ... poems ... not songs, and had a lot less to do with music than they did with the poet on his lectern!

 

There are some things the Doors did as well, that you and I can sit here and think ... sounds like album filler to me ... then you hear it again, and the lyrics and the strength and conviction they are delivered with ... beats you to a pulp! And I can tell you that two-thirds of the "progressive" and "prog" listed in this board does not even come close to doing that! Some of them even pretend to have very with it lyrics ... Jim Morrison did not have to resort to that ... a poet rarely does!

 

Why not progressive? Because they don't sound like Genesis or ELP? ... guess what ... they were around before Genesis, and pretty much the same time as ELP ... thought The Doors were already legendary in the states way before ELP became so. And by the time that ELP had to do leather pants and balls, Jim was already gone and not interested in the star thing ... while his death and drugs is not on my list of wonderful achievements, the honesty and lyricism far out weights ELP and Genesis and so many other bands.

 

The Doors didn't have to be hip! ... or pretend! ... or impress you with a chord that made it progressive!

 

There is a side of "progressive" that is scary for me.

 

For the most part, there is no clear history and concise quantization of the work that grew with the time and place ... it's like it was magic and there it is in one place ... and the fact is that many bands, specially in California were also doing it, at the same time that others were doing it in Europe as well as London ... and our ability to exemplify, strengthen and define "progressive" loses its power ... when so much of it was inspired by the likes of Jim, Janis, and others that came from a different place and time ... but in America "progressive" means you do blues and jazz better than anyone else ... until later! And that leaves a massive amount of work, bands and people completely un-discussed ...

 

Historically, I would love to see the world of "progressive" start ... way back ... and I mean around the early 60's even ... and be big enough to list some things ... that really busted out the whole thing ... and really ... The Doors definitly fit in my book! ... But then I would also add Chicago 1 and 2 ... but it appears that folks here think that horns are not prog because they are not metal enough? Or Symphonic enough? Or Neo enough? Or you can go back to Jefferson Airplane as well, if not Paul Kantner's experimental solo albums ... they do fit as progressive, but will not get the credit for it, because a Garcia played guitar in a couple fo moments, and other goons sang in there that fit ... progressive folk at the time (Crosby Stills and Nash) ... and ... it just goes on and on!

 

See ... that's an issue ... almost ALL music has its start in a jam ... and some takes off on the lyrics and the visual content that it offers, and others go to the conventional music formats.

 

Why, why, why ... can not an experiment, or a jam, define a piece of music? ... might as well call krautrock a bunch of crap, because many of them started with jams, and in the case of a couple of bands, they even admit they were so ripped it didn't matter what came out ... to the point that one person even said ... we were all so stoned and looking at each other I had to do something!

 

Music is music!

 

When the music is over, turn out the lights ... will be the end of progressive music since you are not allowing music to "live"! ... that's the part I don't ever want to miss, and the part that makes it for me ... without that special feeling ... there is no music ... and it doesn't matter if it is a jam or a staff ... but please do not determine that one is right and the other is wrong ... you will kill music in one swell foop!

 

Most people ... do not EVER ... know or understand or feel an artist ... it's why they are fans, you know?

 

But don't ever try ... to kill the music inside ... for I have a feeling inside ... INSIDE ... and you are basically telling me it is not a true feeling because the music is a jam? I would think that Ray, Robbie and John would not appreciate you a whole lot right now!

This ramble was such a delight that I had to come out of progarchives retirement, if only for a moment. Codification of something is not the same as understanding or even loving it. There is a fair amount of musical vivisection on this site, and little artistic sympathy. The Doors had utter soul. The Soft Parade is an awesome album...from my point of view. I encourage everyone to listen to it sans any moldering prejudices.

 

 

I agree and especially with your points about Krautrock and jamming in general. I might add that there have been many cases with superb writers who write a particular unique chord sequence for a song and command the band to simply play that sequence over and over..like a jam, until a signature line comes to mind. In otherwords, let's see what happens. In many cases . jamming is mixing the brew and preparing the formula for an outcome of some kind. Another case may be John Lennon asking the band to jam over 3 chords he wrote and waiting for George Harrison to play that certain appealing group of notes, stopping the jam and saying..."I think I'll sing the notes George has just played" "Okay, back to the song"   In rock and progressive pen and paper does not always enter into the picture. Many Classically trained musicians in prog insisted on forming pieces , coming up with signature riffs, directly from jamming with their own band. Tony Banks for one. Tony Banks could read the music written by Univers Zero or Art Zoyd, but prefers himself to create structure with Collins and Rutherford by jamming. Not the kind of jamming that Brand X did..but the kind where musicians listen for a formula to naturally develop, listen back to the tapes, break up those fine bits and pieces and in the end creating a song with lyrics. Nothing is exacting . No method has been laid down by an old man up in the puffy clouds and blue sky to form or compose music in the way that a majority of people in society (it seems to me), take it to be. As you said..music is music!

Almost every book about the Doors tells that Robby studied flamenco and then used this approach for playing electric guitar.

 

 

This could mean for example the intro to "Love Me Two Times" is possibly played with the fingernails of his right hand? and to be honest...I don't personally know if he played electric guitar finger style in all cases, but my reference is mainly of him using the same tri-tones as Fripp and the same distortion ..sustaining effect on various leads. He used a distortion which was either through the amp itself or what was known then as the "Big Muff" or maybe even a better pedal. He plays a haunting electric guitar lead with a hall or reverb effect on most albums. Usually a song that rocks out and has a dark sound. Definitely not the sound he used on songs like "People Are Strange" and "You're Lost Little Girl" where obviously the guitar is being played with a clean tone.

From what I've read I know that in the Doors glory days Robby always played with the fingernails of his right hand. In later interviews (if memory serves me it was on "Classic Albums: The Doors" DVD: http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=35826" rel="nofollow - http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=35826 ) he said that later he learned to play with a plectrum as well and now he uses plectrum even more often than fingernails.

I attended MANZAREK-KRIEGER OF THE DOORS concert in June and tried to look how Robby plays. Set list consisted of the Doors' classics, only short instrumental "Russian Caravan" was taken from Robby's solo album "Singularity". He played with fingernails most of the time, using plectrum from time to time.

I don't know whether the Doors in the late 60s were familiar with Fripp's music. If they were it was never mentioned in the books I've read about the Doors (memoirs of Densmore, Manzarek and others). Probably Krieger and Fripp came to the same idea independently.   

 

I agree. Thanks for confirming Krieger's picking styles. Fripp used distortion on one track only from "The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles, and Fripp" in 1968..and I doubt if many American artists heard the album. I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I feel I must doubt it because of it's obscure nature as opposed to being an English Pop record. It was the last track from the record where Fripp played for the first time..a sustaining dark type of solo which had that Krieger sound used on "When the Music's Over". As you said they came to the same idea independently. It seems too far-fetched to consider otherwise in the silly event of who got there first. Although I have been amazed by the expression of 60's music which sometimes filters through early 70's prog.

And don't forget jazz. Ray Manzarek recalled that when he first met John Densmore they told each other that they love jazz, but both are not good enough to be proper jazz keyboardist and drummer (respectively) . But they felt that it's possible to incorporate elements of any kind of music into rock and make something original. We all know they succeeded.

When the Music's Over has some weak lyrics, and limited melody, but it is pure drama, just about the finest rock-drama ever produced in pop music's history.

 

The funny thing is that the European musicians will tell you that they wanted to come to America to do the American thing, and many American musicians were looking to Europe for something ... and in the case of many jazz musicians in the 50's they left America ... and when you see the Tom Dowd DVD, you will know why!

 

But there are many parallels between ... let's say ... the UFO club, and the Fillmore ... they are almost identical ... with one exception. London had a better appreciation for the arts, in ANY form, than America ever did! America media has been killing the arts for 60 years ... and it's hard for folks, even here, to see things like "Citizen Kane" ... and not realize that when you look at USA TODAY it is only giving you words on things it has an investment in! Or a program that they have money and interest in! And you fail to recognize that the "freedoms" are not there anymore ... since you end up thinking that a top ten, or an American Idol, or some Nashville this and that, are the only things that are happening in America ... when in essence, this is like 5 or 6 countries ... and NY doesn't do Nashville. NY does NY! SF doesn't do NY. SF does SF! and the arts/music scenes are all like that here ... and were like that then.

 

Sadly, and Dean is a proponent of this, a lot of that stuff is dead and gone, and yes, it is. But I only disagree in that there were not enough people that were more educated than a cat or a dog to give a damn about their time and place in life ... it's like it was meaningless ... and to me, folks like The Doors are a serious vindication of the sheer beauty and poetry of that time and place ... that so few people appreciated then, and even fewer appreciate it now.

 

Funny ... the main theme of "The Soft Parade" is just about all that !!! ... and now, ladies and gentleman, here comes the best part of the trip! All politics and ideas aside ... there is something left ... the music! I'm not sure that some folks ever realized how with it some of this stuff really was, and for me, some folks thinking it is just a song and nothing else, demeans the value of the work.

 

We just don't believe, trust, love or appreciate the arts anymore. Or the freedom of life! Instead of the prison of a religion!

 

In general, the majority of Jim Morrison's work is very visual and is film minded. Don't forget that you are talking about film students at UCLA, and you do not get into that school if you were not good, or talked a better game. When the Music is Over is not about the lyrics ... never was ... it's about a sound, an inner sound ... that some folks will never hear in their lives! A dream is not close enough. A vision is an idea by comparison!

 

When you "know", and you "see" ... so few people can not feel it or understand it, and prefer to say that it is wrong, and either the lyrics or this or that is not good enough. Heck .. they said the same thing about Jesus of Nazareth, so why are we surprised at comments like that?

I love most of their albums, the title 'Soft Parade' track is up there amongst the best.  Truthfully, i love the 2 'post-Morrison' albums more than anything.  For me, it should've been 'Ray Manzarek and The Doors'.............

Are you kidding?
 

Why not 'Doroti Fujikawa and the Doors'?  

Read Ray's memoirs, the Doors would never happen without her approval and support in the very beginning.