THE SOFT PARADE

I began with that phrase, because i´ve notice is several sites and with people, that for them this album is the worst and weakest in their discography (Jim era), surely it is not their best, not even in their Top 3, but i personally think that this is not the worst, and even the worst is not such a bad album as people point out.

It is notable the change in the sound and even the produccion, but it doesn´t make it a bad record,for the first time we can found an orchestral sound. It is so difficult for a band, to continue with the succes of their best albums, there´s always a high point when they can stay a year maybe a couple, but there are always highs and lows, despite, i repeat, this is not a badalbum at all, thisprobably marked a fall of the band, obviously this hadn´t the success as the previous releases, in fact there are no hits on here, besides "Touch me" which is a nice song, but not so memorable as other ones.

This time they put 9 songs in the album, being the album with less songs so far, but the time lenght is the averages. "The Soft Parade" released in 1969 (the same year as the first Crimson masterpiece was). It starts with "Tell all the People", since this song we can notice a remeakable change in their music, this is so soft and a bit poppier, the road of the album will be alike than this song, "Touch Me" was the main single of this album, it didn´t become a true hit in the charts, though it was recognized in several TV and Radio programs, a good song, again with a pop sound, but with the always good keys of Manzarek. Next to it, is probably the straight part of the album, the part that may people say that is bad and weak, "Shaman´s Blues", "Do It" and "Easy Ride" are 3 songs which dont offer anything new to the Doors´listener, the song or me aren´t bad, but the magical sound of the band is lost in this bunch. "Wild Child" is a short but encouraged song, probably besides Touch Me the better known of this album, nice Dooresque tunes. "Running Blue" returns again to the weak moments, this time you can hear a violin sound, but it doesn´t make it better. "Wishful Sinful" is another poppish song, a soft and calm passage, but probably one of the best songs here. The album closes with the title track, "The Soft Parade" which is for sure the best song here by far, the again decided to end an album with an epic, a long song, this time it offers us 9 minutes of great music, great arrangements, weird lyrics and an excellent performance of Jim, this song is very progressive, so any of you could enjoy it, it also contains their clasic psychedelic style.

Being this their 4th album, it was also their 4th best album, but sadly (a personal opinio) they made a worse one, my final grade for this, is 3 stars, because it is good, but non essential!

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