Main menu
Fretplay home Submit tabs

The Doors
The Doors tabs The Doors discography

Channels
Guitar channel Bass channel Guitar videos Reviews

Message Forum
Guitar forum Bass forum Bands and artists Promote your band Recent discussions All categories

Fretplay.com

The Doors guitar tabs

CD reviews

Strange Days

The Doors - Strange Days Audio CD

A fair review of the The Doors "Strange Days" 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: Strange Days
Rating:

Release Date: 2007-03-27
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Strange Days 2: You're Lost Little Girl 3: Love Me Two Times 4: Unhappy Girl 5: Horse Latitudes 6: Moonlight Drive 7: People Are Strange 8: My Eyes Have Seen You 9: I Can't See Your Face In My Mind 10: When The Music's Over 11: People Are Strange (False Starts & Dialogue) (Bonus) 12: Love Me Two Times (Take 3) (Bonus)

the doors 2nd classic album late 67!!
this album is chock full of great tuneage!!the only song on this i,m not crazy about is horse latitudes. this is also another one of my favorite albums!!!this is the second in the series of a one two punch from the doors. the rest is great!!!this album was released in late 1967 which was a very productive year for this l. a. based band. grab this if you are a doors fan!!.

Behind the Artificial Masks
Others (like me) see it as just as good, or even better. "Strange Days" is seen by some as similar sounding, but not quite as good, as the debut it followed up. 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
The cover is quite interesting has a bunch of people acting like circus folk. Strange Days being the Doors 1967 release and their second studio album contained such hits as "Love Me Two Times" and "People are Strange". The CD booklet is quite nice and the lyrics are easy to read. 5/5.
.

Strange Days
As I sit and really think of writing this review in the most of subjective ways I simply cannot. The Doors-Strange Days *****

Strange Days by the Doors even more than their purple hued classic debut album is one of the most brilliant collections of music this side of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme. To me Strange Days is one of my ten favorite albums of all time, the greatest psychedelic album ever, and maybe the greatest album of 1967 a year that brought us such classics as & Nico, Are You Experienced? and so many more making this to me the greatest album of the 1960's. That is how deep my love for the flawless Strange Days goes.

Many try to knock 'Horse Latitudes' but shame on those who do so. This is Morrison at his most pretentious and thus his most honest and entertaining. Mindless poetic banter. . . yes. Pointless. . . hardly. The albums title track is pure psychotic bliss. A track so twisted that it makes me yearn for Scott Weiland to cover it on his next solo album. 'You're Lost Little Girl' 'Unhappy Girl' and 'I Can't See You In My Mind' are scary and three of the purest love songs Morrison ever wrote about his common law wife Pamela, but what really makes these track kick is the key work by Manzarek, it rivals that of even 'Light My Fire' off the debut. The two hit singles 'Love Me Two Times' a rollicking blues number via Kriegers killer guitar riff and Morrison's soldier gone to war lyrics is both sexy and fun. But as sexy as Morrison can be he can be twice as scary and 'People Are Strange' is prime proof of such. I've always loved Kriegers short solo on this one, among his best in my opinion. While on the subject of his guitar, 'Moonlight Drive' contains some of the coolest slide work he ever recorded. Morrison's vocals on 'Moonlight' are among his best. Now for me 'My Eyes Have Seen You' is easily my favorite track on the whole record for no other reason that Jim Morrison. His lyrics alone make the album worth buying. Nothing incredibly prolific or life affirming, just pure Morrison and his vocals are simply stellar.

'When The Musics Over' is so brilliant is deserves it's very own paragraph. The epic album closer is yet another way for Morrison to show his love for the dark side, but yet at the same time it is the celebration of rock n' roll and what it means to be in love with it and all that goes along with it. The road to excess, the trials and tribulations, the genius. But not going down without a fight is the criminally underrated Robbie Krieger who on this nearly 11 minute epic plays his second greatest guitar solo (first being 'Five To One' from Waiting On The Sun). Not double, not triple, but quadruply tracked his guitar solo is incendiary. A fine way to end what I consider a perfect album.

Strange Days is not the one album you must own by the Doors, it is simply their best, but the debut would be the more fitting one to own if you only want one. Though to get a real picture of the Doors you must own all six of their studio albums as they are one of the few who must be heard entirely to fully appreciate and understand. Highly, highly, highly recommended!.

Yes, James, I think I will take that moonlight drive!
I disagree. Now how about this? It didn't have any big singles, it seemed to just sort of slink past audiences (especially in comparison to the success of their debut), and to this day it's regarded as a good but not great effort. This record is so strange, so trippy, so psychedelic, so timelessly dated (!), that, like a moonlit trance, it's hard not to get sucked in. On top of that, the songs are well-constructed, impeccably performed, and Morrison's lyrics seem to be not only pointed but meaningful and even--god bless you, James Morrison--poetic. It loses a lot of steam on Side Two, thanks to the kitschy "People Are Strange" (Echo & the Bunnymen made it seem better, since everything was worse in the Eighties), and "Horse Latitudes" on Side One is completely unnecessary. Otherwise, start to finish--mostly--this one's a blast.

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.