The Doors – Other Voices: #833 of best 1,000 albums ever!

Why is The Doors’ Other Voices on my best 1,000 albums ever list?

“Ray, Robbie, and John did Doors stuff post-Jim?” Yep, and this one’s really good!

What does The Doors’ Other Voices mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?

It’s so hard to even fathom the differences in music discovery – and so many other things – in the pre-Internet era versus the vast resources of information and search algorithmic wizardry we have at our disposal today.

When I first discovered The Doors, I was at the perfect age – 13- or 14-years old – when something about their music (and “it” by its very nature has to include Jim Morrison’s voice when you’re talking about The Doors, right?), something primal, something visceral, hardwired itself into my musical circuitry, to continue with the technological theme.

It took me years before I even realized there was a post-Jim Morrison era Doors to be aware of. Or maybe “should be aware of” is the better way to say it, as I ripped through The Doors’ biography, No One Here Gets Out Alive, by Danny Sugarman and Jerry Hopkins, as soon as I could get my hands on it. I can’t recall if the post-Morrison era was even mentioned in that book, but if there was, it didn’t stick out to me as something I should pay close attention to. And Oliver Stone’s Doors biopic film, unsurprisingly called The Doors, essentially ended with Jim Morrison’s death in Paris in 1971.

This is all preamble to saying that the gap between my becoming a Doors fan and being fully aware that there was a post-Jim Morrison Doors entity to be aware of was quite a large one. In fact, I recall stumbling across “I’m Horny, I’m Stoned,” during the early peer-to-peer era (read = Napster in the early 2000s) and thinking, “Whoa, there’s more Doors material than I was even aware of?”

It helped of course that “I’m Horny, I’m Stoned” is flat out hilarious as song title, and Robbie Krieger’s vocals are charming and endearing as all get out. But most importantly, it’s got a great beat and it’s catchy as hell.

I think anyone with at least a passing familiarity with The Doors would agree that “Tightrope Ride” is the most Doors-y song on Other Voices. It’s also a reminder that keyboardist wunderkind Ray Manzarek was a lead singer in his pre-Doors Rick & the Ravens days. It’s natural to compare his vocal skills to Jim Morrison’s… but that’s unfair to do for anyone. Even at his drunken, sloppy, mumble-y worst, Morrison had the potential to be the most electric performer you’ve ever heard.

Anyway, Manzarek is perfectly competent on a really fun, bluesy rock number with “Tightrope Ride,” and it’s a great commentary on just its title on the great and unending experiment that life itself is each and every day.

Are there parts of Other Voices that veer into what we might call… cheesy by modern standards? Yeah, I think that’s a fair assessment. “Variety Is the Spice of Life” is one of those fascinating songs that you can argue is both deep level Velveeta but also kind of rocks despite of it.

Now, as for “Down on the Farm”…

Personal stuff that’s somehow related to The Doors’ Other Voices

I may or may not have read Doors memoirs written by two of the three members of this version of The Doors over the past few years. Oh, and I’ve also read two books written by the now deceased Ray Manzarek. So that might give you a little insight into how much of a Doors geek I am. It goes back to my formative and impressionable years, okay? There’ll be time enough to get more into as the best 1,000 albums ever list progresses.