Doors - Strange Days
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Music CD Cover
Artist: DoorsBrand: DOORS
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Extra tracks, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2007-03-27
Music Label: Rhino
Product features:
- The Doors - Strange Days Brazil Import
- Strange Days
- You're Lost Little Girl
- Love Me Two Times
- Unhappy Girl
- Horse Latitudes
- Moonlight Drive
- People Are Strange
- My Eyes Have Seen You
- I Can't See Your Face In My Mind
- When The Music's Over
- People Are Strange (False Starts & Dialogue) (Bonus)
- Love Me Two Times (Take 3) (Bonus)
Free Music Notes for Strange Days
Free Music Review: Behind the Artificial Masks
Hit: 5 Stars
"Strange Days" is seen by some as similar sounding, but not quite as good, as the debut it followed up. Others (like me) see it as just as good, or even better. The songs on each were written in the same period, inspired by lead singer Jim Morrison's acid-induced excesses. They have a comparable night-world sound (perhaps "Strange Days" is more "twilight") and, at times, similiar chord progressions. "Strange Days" songs are still distinct structurally and, of course, lyrically. The songs were crafted by meticulous producer Paul Rothchild into no-dross, structured masterpieces that are less spontaneous and free-flowing than those on the debut.
The title cut sets the tone, with its eerie organ and guitar conjuring up spooky images: "strange eyes fill strange rooms" and "voices will signal their tired end." The morbid side is also represented in Jim's high-school poem "Horse Latitudes," given expression only in sound effects. It is about throwing horses overboard from Spanish ships in the ocean doldrums in days of yore, to lighten the cargo.
Perhaps the best song is guitarist Robby Krieger's "Love Me Two Times," the only tune with no eerie texture. It might have reached #1 had it not been for the censors of its time. It is hard blues, driving powerfully forward; Ray Manzarek intersperses with a clavinet solo in triplicate motif that could not be tighter. It satisfies those who want a piece of raw-charged rock from The Doors but feel they do not get it enough. The other AM hit was "People Are Strange," Morrison's negative statement about the feelings of lonely rejection.
In the spooky rocker "Moonlight Drive," the first song Morrison wrote, he exhorts the girl to join him in a dark adventure: "swim to the moon," "climb through the tide." Robby dishes out a terrific blues/rock guitar solo. "You're Lost Little Girl" and "Unhappy Girl" are even more darkly seductive. The former features Robby's haunting twangs, rising and rushing to climax. "Unhappy Girl" is a remarkable studio accomplishment featuring a backward recording of Ray's minor-chord medieval organ and beautiful, piercing slide guitar by Robby. It presents a visual image of a girl alone, "locked in a prison of [her] own device." Jim sings, ever so sensuously: "And you can't believe/What it does to me/See you/Crying."
The powerful "My Eyes Have Seen You" represents the group's apex in achieving visualization of Jim's lyrics. He wrote this hypnotic song from a Venice, CA rooftop; hence "television skies." The bass and harpsichord and Robby's vibrating, centripetal guitar charges help Jim to "photograph your soul." For "I Can't See You Face in My Mind," Rothchild slowed down the tempo of the group's live version of its early days. The mood is subdued, highlighted by Ray's soft, dry organ and Robby's dark lullaby guitar licks. Ray also employs a marimba, and John Densmore's cymbal hits are recorded backward. Morrison is reaching out behind an artifical mask: "I can't seem to find the right lie."
Jim Morrison brings Antonin Artaud's "Theater of Cruelty" to the rock stage in "When the Music's Over." It sports a neat acid-rock guitar solo by Robby and organ blasts by Ray. But Jim dominates with a melange of spoken word poetry/exhortations: negative social commentary, rebellion, spooky images, and terror. The music gets repetitive and Morrison's verbiage drags for many, but those who like it love it. Like Artaud, Morrison wanted to involve the audience directly in the anguish; the song became a concert spectacle.
"Strange Days" is archetypal Doors, the darkest and most sensuous: the group at its best. It is a monument in rock history.
Bonus tracks: Among the CD reworks of the Doors' six studio albums, "Strange Days" offers the least in terms of bonus tracks. For "People Are Strange, " false starts and dialogue? So, then, what is the bonus? The alternate take of "Love Me Two Times" is a lark but inferior to the original we know.
Strange Days Poster
STRANGE DAYS, first out in October '67, went to #3 and introduced the Doors classics "People Are Strange," "Love Me Two Times" and "Strange Days." In-depth liner notes by Barney Hoskyns, co-founder of online rock library Rock's Backpages. Two bonus extras include previously unreleased versions of "People Are Strange" and "Love Me Two Times."Even darker than their purple-hued debut, the Doors' follow-up, Strange Days, closed 1967 with an ominous flourish. Highlighted mostly by short, radio-friendly tunes such as the bluesy "Love Me Two Times" and the cabaret-style "People Are Strange" and featuring a smattering of edgy recitations ("Horse Latitudes") and smoky rockers ("My Eyes Have Seen You"), the album features a centerpiece that was another ambitious extended track, "When the Music's Over." On it, Morrison railed at everything from organized religion to pollution, and his rallying cry--"We want the world, and we want it now!"--became a call to arms for the counterculture rising up around the band. --Billy Altman
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