THE SOFT PARADE

Here is an album by Jim Morrison and The Doors that really seems to divide the fans - the inclusion of Brass arrangements is a one-off with the band and perhaps a failed experiment in many's eyes. Some of the song-writing isn't the highest of quality, but there's surely some essential pieces on this, thankfully short-ish offering. Again, it's Manzarek's keyboards that (almost) never fails to impress me - 'Shaman's Blues' is a song I've enjoyed from the first time I heard it in 1987, the melody and the organ playing. 'Wild Child' is a brief bit of biting acid-rock, and a kick-butt track at that, Krieger's guitaring is really in-your-face and the organ sound is 'big'. Jim sings really passionately on this one. Finally, the title composition 'The Soft Parade' (8.40) is more like a medley of ideas locking together to form quite the 'epic' - some of the parts themselves are innovative and fresh sounding ; we have poetry, some beautiful Harpsichord, a way-ahead-of-schedule disco sounding section which actually is quite amazing (given that it was 1969), a bouncy, twee section with some light melodies and inspired poetry, and the heavy end section with occasional twists. The award for most annoying tune goes for 'Do It', and I don't really go for country music - 'Easy Ride' and 'Runnin Blue'. The remaining 3 songs fall in the middle - neat little songs with catchy hooks and a commercial flavour, with their 'feet' placed firmly in the realms of 'Pop', top song here being the hit 'Touch Me'. 3 stars.