Doors- Soft Parade

Soft Parade

"The Soft Parade", The Doors' fourth album, struggles to be musically inventive. What made the first two albums so wonderfully successful is their very unique sound, and that sound encapsulated the growing, revolutionary thought processes that were spreading throughout America's youth at the time of the 1960s. The Doors were both original and very much of their time, although those first two records never feel dated. Then The Doors released "Waiting for the Sun", which has several good songs, but only approaches the quality of the first two records in isolated moments. After the wake of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and all the psychedelic music that was coming out at the time, The Doors decided to do their own version of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". By this, I mean they decided to totally reinvent their sound and style and popular music in general, giving the world a radical look how high rock and roll can really climb on the artistic ladder. Unfortunately, The Doors were never as consistently good as The Beatles, and instead of turning in an amazing LP, we end up with the weakest set of songs The Doors ever put to tape.

To understand the state of "The Soft Parade", it helps to look at the album before that, "Waitng for the Sun". The Doors seem to operate in twos, with their first two records brilliant, their middle two rather mediocre, their last two good blues albums, and then there's the two (out of print) records The Doors made after Morrison's death ("Other Voices" and ""Full Circle"). "Waiting for the Sun" was little more than a holding action, product put out because they had to, although there are some great songs on it. At least on "The Soft Parade" they were trying to do something different, even though it ends up being just as mediocre an album as its predecessor.

The Doors talk about the `third album syndrome' effecting "Waiting for the Sun". They had handpicked their best material for their debut, then the rest went onto "Strange Days". At the third album, they were in a quandry, because all their best material had already been issued. The Doors found it difficult to write compelling, commercial songs, and so turned in their rather lackluster third album. What really hurt "Waiting for the Sun" was the decision to cut "Celebration of the Lizard," which would have been a very long opus taking up the majority of the second side of the song. So when it came time to record "The Soft Parade", The Doors wanted to strike out in a different direction.

While not wholly a failure, "The Soft Parade" turns out to be, along with "Waiting for the Sun", The Doors' weakest album. By this time, Morrison was so out of control Kreiger wrote half the tracks on the album, and it shows. (Also, Morrison didn't want to be credited with calling people to get their guns on the first track). Because the third album didn't have a real tangible identity as far as sound goes, The Doors wisely decided to reinvent themselves and broaden their musical horizons.

While we must admire them for this ambition, the end results are very mixed. Taking over eight months to record, the album proved a difficult record to make. In the end, Morrison described the album the band trying to do something new but that it got bogged down. How true.

Trading in their psychedelic sound they so successfully displayed on their first two records, we get a big band sound instead. The reason they turned from this sound was by the third album the well was clearly running dry. On several of the songs this new sound works, especially the first three tracks. If the rest of the songwriting had been as strong as it was on the first three, then "The Soft Parade" would stand proudly among The Doors' best work. Unfortunately, this is not the case. "The Soft Parade", quite simply, boasts the weakest set of the original six albums. "Do It," "Easy Ride," and "Running Blue," simply don't gel, though "Running Blue" is a very funny song. The title track I really like for about the first four minutes. I find the last (and longest) musical section gets rather monotonous as the song [goes on for over eight minutes] [ploughs onward,] lurches toward its closing eight minute running time. And where is "Who Scared You?" Had "Do It" been deleted and that included in the running order, the album would be much stronger. "Shaman's Blues" is a masterpiece, and "Wild Child" harkens back to that dark, careening undercurrent of their first two albums. Very good song. "Wishful Sinful" is nice as well.

By this point in their career, The Doors were rather falling apart artistically, no thanks to Morrison's increasingly difficult behaviour. After turning in two rather lackluster LPs after two great albums, The Doors seemed headed on a downward spiral. Fortunately, The Doors went into the blues after this album, producing two good albums (even though they couldn't touch the first two's quality) before Morrison died.

Overall, I admire The Doors for their ambition in trying to come up with a highly artistic, progressive record. I just wish they had done a better job at it.