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The Soft Parade

The Doors - The Soft Parade Audio CD

A fair review of the The Doors "The Soft Parade" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all The Doors reviews here, or go back to the The Doors tabs.

Band: The Doors
Title: The Soft Parade
Rating:

Release Date: 1990-10-25
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Tell All the People 2: Touch Me 3: Shaman's Blues 4: Do It 5: Easy Ride 6: Wild Child 7: Runnin' Blue 8: Wishful Sinful 9: Soft Parade

The Soft Parade (****1/2)
Waiting for the Sun is concidered one of their weakest albums, while it is one of my most loved and cherished of the groups albums. The Doors-The Soft Parade ****1/2

The Doors did very little wrong in my eyes. The Soft Parade is widely agreed to be the bands weakest album, I love it as well. No it isn't as revolutionary as the debut, or as darkly beautiful as Strange Days, or even as solid as L. A. Woman but The Soft Parade is The Doors. Well what people define The Doors as anyways. They are always labeled a psychedelic bluesy rock band. Okay well that is what you have here. Isn't the point of being a psychedelic band to be as far out and adventurous as possible? That is what the Doors are all about and The Soft Parade embodies that more than any other album in the bands canon. While not as varied in sound as Waiting for the Sun or a pigeon holed in one sound as Morrison Hotel, The Soft Parade finds solid ground taking a little bit of each Doors album and creating one crazy trip.

While most of the album is dominated by Robbie Krieger songs that does not mean it is bad, that only explains why it is unlike any other Doors album. 'Tell All The People' is classic shamanistic Morrison as read through Kriegers lyrics. 'Touch Me' became a large hit and radio classic while it is the second weakest track on the album. 'Shamans Blues' finds a broken spirited Morrison rapping over a wailing organ from Manzarek. 'Do It' is a classic Indian chant by way of Krieger's guitar and Morrison's poetic prose in the same vein as 'My Wild Love. ' 'Easy Ride' is slow and sexy while 'Wild Child' is angry and passive in the same breath. 'Runnin' Blue' plays like a hippie freak out near Haight & Ashbury in San Francisco. 'Wishful Sinful' is really the only weak track and it isn't even that bad. ' Keeping true to the epic closing tradition, 'The Soft Parade' serves as one hell of a title track. One part blues vamp, one part lament, another part religious experince/revalation, and all part amazing. I've heard people say this album and this track in perticular are self-indulgent. Well. . . duh, that is the point. That is why everyone loves Jim Morrison. I know for me personally I wouldn't hold rock musicians to half the standards I do if it weren't for Jim Morrison being the self-indulgent, idiotic genius that he is.

The Soft Parade is not a bad album by any means. Yes when you compare it to Strange Days it seems weak, but almost every other album seems weak when you compare it to something so amazing as Strange Days. When you look at The Soft Parade for what it is, the most blatant example of excess and psychedelia than you have a near masterpiece.

Tell All the People
My spontaneous reaction after listening to the whole thing was that I really enjoyed the sound of this particular Door's album. I went into this album not yet knowing all the criticism that it had garnered.

Coming into this album, I was only familiar with "Touch Me". In the end I also enjoyed "Tell All The People", "Wild Child", "Wishful Sinful", and "The Soft Parade".

Remember, one of the Door's motto is to "Open the Doors of Perception". Maybe a shift in "perception" is needed by all the detractors in order to enjoy this unique experience.

open the door and let me in
The main focus is of course on the songwriting, which is really JUST as good as it has always been (since the debut). The Doors "Soft Parade" doesn't deserve the criticism it has received for being a jazzy album with brass sounds.

Every song entertains me and I'm really glad I can listen to this album over and over and continue to get a huge amount of enjoyment out of it every time. That's the truth too. I love the jam on the title song, and "Tell all the People" has a brilliant vocal melody. It doesn't lose its momentum either, for the entire run, baby.

I can't believe people are still criticizing it. For what? It was a slight change in style, I admit. I mean, it doesn't have that mysterious spooky edge that made the first three albums so brilliant. But remember, songwriting is something NOT to be underrated. That's something you can never ignore. Quality is quality, and the Doors deserve to be remembered for having a very successful career with consistently enjoyable songwriting-dominated tracks. Great album.

Bogus Doors
They didn't really sell out but were trying to shed their rebellious hippie image in favor of teeny bopper bubble gum to the point where they were on the cover of Tiger Beat. This is a bogus Doors CD with Jim Morrison. The music isn't bad, in fact it's really good, it's just the fact of one of their weakest singles, Touch Me, and compares poorly to the more inspired debut and LA Woman, poorly to even Morrison Hotel. This is called Soft Parade because The Doors are soft core now. If you just listen to it straight through it's great background music for sitting back and relaxing, but the Doors here are pure bubble gum, which got criticized for catering to pubescent audiences. I got this as relic of the 60s and 1900s for 2 bucks. I don't have the 2007 remaster, this is the 1990 CD reissue. I want rebellous or older drunk Doors. I'm not saying it sucks, it's just this bubble gum version of a classic rock band doesn't do it for me not get me pumped. .

A Transitional Experimental Album-One of the Best
A Transitional album were the musicians are attempting new songs and finding a new aspect of there music by introducing new sounds and styles. I find it hard to believe that people don't take this album for what it is. This album should be compared to The Rolling Stones Beggars Banquet. There are hints of Blue Grass and Country and blues both albums produced exceptionally long songs that are incredible to listen to and that can be squarely referenced in the time period they were created in and yet also sound timeless. Both Albums also sound different in many ways from the prior or later work. If you enjoy understand the whole catalog of a group or artist this is a can't miss album. If you just want the hits don't buy this one.

You can see a complete list of all The Doors discography, or go back to the The Doors tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.