straf's (Totally awesomer than G's) Review Thread

[straf]

Sure, I guess.

[Suicide Club]

Yaeee.. //

[straf]

I've been busy lately, but the reviews should be back on schedule(or what little "schedule" I had).

[Zilla2112]

YAYZ

[Suicide Club]

BOTDF is next in deh line?
If not, I be a virtually cuttin' yuu with my 'C' key out of anger.
Yuu wouldn't want that, would yuu?
Silly straf. //

[straf]

OK... I ended up being busy again, but this time I should be back for realzz.

Except BOTDF, Black Sabbath, and Kanye West soon.

[Jack White]

Umgumgumg

[straf]

Yet another bump, but I've actually been working on this a bit. I find that my current rating system is rather ineffective. It may work for you, but I nit-pick at everything, even my own work. I'm thinking of changing to letter grades instead of numbers. I've worked out the basics of this new rating system and I will post the idea once it's more fleshed out. I'll also be going back and changing the ratings of previous reviews to letter grades to help with continuity.

[Jack White]

Letter grades?

Well, I guess it could be interesting if it actually works decently, but not even schools use letter grades anymore.

[Zilla2112]

Jan 5, 2011 22:56:34 GMT -5 Jack White said:

Letter grades?

Well, I guess it could be interesting if it actually works decently, but not even schools use letter grades anymore.

Indeed. I remember when EGM changed to letter grades on their video game reviews just before their downfall, and it sucked. But who knows, it probably would be fine here.

[straf]

Alright, reviews updated to letter grades, bar the outdated ones. Work will continue soon.

[straf]

The Doors - The Soft Parade

Released in 1969
Track Listing
Tell All the People
Touch Me
Shaman's Blues
Do It
Easy Ride
Wild Child
Runnin' Blue
Wishful Sinful
The Soft Parade

The Doors tried to pass off the blunder of Waiting For the Sun as falling victim to their newly made up "third album rule" where all of their best material is used up for the first two albums and pressure from the record companies caused them to half-arse it and release barely fleshed-out material to the eager public. Perhaps such a rule exists, as releases due tend to lose something after the second album, but probably due to either losing their sense of innovative-ness due to finally finding their place in the studio and trying to commercialize (see: Queen, Black Sabbath, Bob Dylan, Sparklehorse, Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, etc). Some artists do, however, skip this "third album rule" entirely (probably from being in way over their heads or their 'so-bad-it's-good pretentiousness) (see: The Replacements, the Velvet Underground, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, etc), and even for those who do fall victim to such a sadistic rule, they usually come back on their fourth album with a new-found bombast that has just as much bite as bark, if not more. And seeing how the Doors used to kick so much ass, you'd expect them to come back almost whole-heartedly. Not exactly. While they did have a lot "newfound" bombast, it wa sin a completely different direction, now adding warm and popping horns and almost "happy" music, creating some sort of flower-pop atmosphere. Even cringe-worthy at times.

A lot of the disappointment in itself didn't come from the new flower-pop sound, however. No, that was quite an interesting addition. The problem came from the lyrics almost specifically, having mostly been penned by Robby Krieger, who can NOT right a good verse to save his life. While this normally shouldn't be a problem -- I mean, look at Queen. Their lyrics are atrocious -- this wasn't particularly a time when instrumentation was everything. At least when listening to Queen you had some sort of insane, baroque melody to fall back on, but back in the sixties, lyrics are of just as much importance as the music itself. I could look over the lyrics, actually, if it weren't for one cold fact. Jim is singing them. Actually SINGING them. While flowery music is out of place for the Doors anyway, Jim betraying his image is almost appalling, especially since he never ditched it even for interviews. And not just Jim himself. While the Lizard King is no longer singing about snakes by the lake and the Sabbaths of the strange people and shamans (except on a couple select songs), his voice would sound good, right? Not really. He can't sing all this "happy" music at all. Not only does it sound so out of place, it's also pretentious at times, most notably in the already bad "Runnin' Blue".

It does has a few redeeming points, though, most notably "Shaman's Blues", "Wild Child", and "Wishful Sinful". But the main chef d'vour comes in the form of the title track, a three-piece (or was it four?) epoch, going from a fanatical invocation to a psychedelic downward spiral, then to a mock-prophetic message about tropic treasures and horses eyes... All in about eight-and-a-half minutes. It's another one of those long album closers, like "The End" and "When The Music's Over", but a lot more inviting (unfortunately, Waiting For the Sun skipped out on this. It was originally intended to be "Celebration of the Lizard", but it was cut. Which is probably why half of the album is crap). But really, bar those few gripes, The Soft Parade is really a fun album. Perhaps not the best, but it deserves at least one listen in your lifetime. It may be nice to note that the latest re-release has some really nice bonus tracks, even including "Whiskey, Mystics, & Men", on of my favorite songs by them. I think it was originally planned to be on this album, and I don't know why they cut it. Luckily for avid Doors fans, though, it didn't get the whole horn treatment, so you can still enjoy it in the expected Doors style.

B+

[straf]

The Doors - Morrison Hotel

Released in 1970
Track Listing
Roadhouse Blues
Waiting for the Sun
You Make Me Real
Peace Frog
Blue Sunday
Ship of Fools
Land Ho!
The Spy
Queen of the Highway
Indian Summer
Maggie M'Gill

After the less-than-hearty reception for The Soft Parade, the Doors probably realized that trying to add "new dimensions' to their music was very unnecessary. Morrison Hotel was their redemption album, so to speak. While it wasn't exactly a back-to-the-basics sort of thing, they did revert back to blues. No more flowery horns, no more wanna-be lyrics, and no more "Runnin' Blues" -- just the gritty blues that got our attention on The Doors. While this is one of their more critically acclaimed albums, it's just as screwy as the two albums before it, even going so far as splitting itself into two parts: Hard Rock Cafe, which is full of really rocking songs like "Roadhouse Blues" and "Peace Frog", and Morrison Hotel, which is full of Jim's acid poetry set to music. They're all just tiny versions of "The End" and MY GOD are they boring. You know why you never heard "Indian Summer" on The Doors or Strange Days, even though it was written and had arrangements back then? Because they couldn't get it to sound very good. I guess they still couldn't get it right. And you know it's not like my to diss on the Lizard King, but there's just no substance to them! Even the Paris Tapes, which is just an hour of spoken-word poetry and absolutely shitty A Capella singing, is better than that stuff!

The first part is stuff of the gods, though. The Doors even went so far as to hire a few top-notch session artists, so the bass is real and the harp isn't being played in that poser Brian Jones/Mick Jagger style. "Waiting For The Sun" was recycled from the Waiting For The Sun sessions (obviously) and sounds very out of place compared to the rest of Hard Rock Cafe, but it fortunately didn't get that commercialized treatment so it rocks just as hard, it's just musically and lyrically weirder. It also contains the only good Doors ballad in existence, "Blue Sunday", which was quite a pleasant surprise, especially since I'd given up on Doors ballads by that time (I mean. come on. "Love Street" was full of cheese [just like the rest of the album, sure], and don't tell me any of those "ballads" off The Soft Parade deserve mention, 'cause they don't). And the inclusion of the funky "Peace Frog" and the fun little bouncy number called "Ship Of Fools" (an even more fun live staple) automatically makes Hard Rock Cafe full of win.

Of course, Morrison Hotel is where Morrison Hotel starts to fall apart. It starts of well enough with the bouncy "Land Ho!", which is really just a re-hash of "Ship Of Fools", and by that time, that bouncy-bouncy beat is kind of annoying. Afterward, you get the wanna-be jazz "The Spy", which may have been good if it were cut in half, but it just DRAGS. ON. "Queen Of The Highway" is OK. You might even really like it the first few times you hear it, but it's rather generic in retrospect. The there's that "Indian Summer". ARGH. I hate hate hate! that song. It's so boring. It starts of well enough, but then it's sent to hell by muddy vocals and muddy instruments and the same few lyrics over and over again. But then again, that's the point. Jim was big on these Indian shamans, so it was supposed to sound weird. This *is* Jim's side after all, so I guess he gets to do what he wants. "Maggie M'Gill" is a mock-rock song, I think. You want to like it, but you just can't. It's another track that suffers from being too long. It's not necessarily bad, no. It's just... OK. In fact, there's not really a "bad" song on here, bar "Indian Summer". It's just on really, really good part (Hard Rock Cafe) followed by an overtly average one.

All in all, Morrison Hotel is an album with a very matured band. They know the ins-and-outs of music by this point, and it shows. The playing is very strong and edgy (in the good way), but it's just marred by a few mediocre-to-average tracks. And Jim. Oh yeah. While Jim is a great addition to the Doors (the staple, really. After he left, their albums were total balls), but this album just OD'd on him. As much as I like him, I'd be the first to admit that too much Jim can be a bad thing (or at least a wanker thing), as proven by Morrison Hotel. But, hey, get this. It's very interesting. In fact, you should get every Doors album (shouldn't I save this for LA Woman?) just so you can get a taste of one of the more interesting bands of an even more interesting epoch of musical history. Cheers.

B+

[straf]

Added description of my new rating system to the first post.

[straf]

To help myself out a bit, I've been keeping a little composition book of notes and thoughts on albums I've been listening to. The review coming up is the bastard child of said notes.