The Soft Parade Beckley WV

The Soft Parade

The Doors

Elektra, 1969

REVIEW BY: Benjamin Ray

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 05/22/2007

The Doors will always remain the most fascinating American rock group of the 1960s.

There's a strange feeling when listening to them, almost like stepping into a foreign and dangerous world. Thanks to Ray Manzarek's keyboard, the music is quite dated but still transports the listener to those seedy, stale beer-soaked clubs of southern California, where the dream and the reality fused in a melancholy haze.

It is in this haze that the band sounds best, especially when listening to The Soft Parade. An early attempt at mixing rock with horns, it is an album that requires a specific mood to enjoy -- to wit, that mood when one is driving home late at night, the window cracked open, the thoughts swirling on philosophy and the meaning of life with a dose of sex fantasy. Which is basically what the Doors were all about - getting laid while reading poetry. Val Kilmer did it in Oliver Stone's movie and pulled the scene off quite well, if one needs a reference point.

Barring that specific scenario, listening to The Soft Parade is not an easy task. Easily the weakest Doors album with Jim Morrison, the nine songs betray an exhausted, embattled group coming off Morrison's on-stage audience baiting in Miami, resulting in the alleged flashing incident. Shortly after this, the singer gained weight and grew a beard and the band began writing songs in the studio.