The very best of the Doors review

I'm interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos, especially activity that appears to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road toward freedom.

-- Jim Morrison

Why write something that you probably never heard before? something you wouldn't even care to try to listen to? maybe this entry will let you try and like something thats so old and so amazing. You would be surprised you missed out the good stuff since many many years ago. Do come back for more stuff you missed out that you certainly couldn't find in Singapore radio. //assumption, most readers over here are singaporeans.

The Doors. a bit of background history: "one of the most influential and controversial rock bands of the 1960s," vocal, Jim Morrison, died from a drug overdose which ended the 8 year band. "In the mid-'80s[a decade after he died], Morrison was as big a star as he'd been in the mid-'60s, and Elektra has sold numerous quantities of the Doors' original albums plus reissues and releases of live material over the years". This is also one of the very few legendary bands around that doesn't consist of a bassist. The conventional bass parts are replaced by the deep vocals and keyboards. If I did not read the missing bass part, I wouldn't had realised that. They sounded so full.

When doing a 'greatest hits' , 'the very best" and/or "singles.." album review, its quite impossible to define the mood of the band at different stages of their career. The album is most probably just a gamut of all their most creative and best-selling. But apparantly, this album captures just about the best of everything they had done, leaving out the more 'hard songs' for the diehards.

My favourite The Doors song is of course "The End", which is also used in the commencing sequence of Apocalypse Now (1979). I admit I do not really understand most of the song but when Morrison sings "This is the end, my only friend", I know this is the song for me.

Followed by "Light my fire" (remember Will Young in World Idol?), that song had a very snake charmer solo right at the beginning of the song (which i practised for like 2 weeks yet I still can't get the rift going..). apparantly, this song is so heavily covered by many other artists [WILL YOUNG?!]. In the middle of the song, there is an extended two part solo which just totally expended every possibly-nice-snake-charmer-like guitar hooks.

"People are Strange", the shortest song in the whole album clocking at 2:12 with Morrison charming you off your socks. just listen to him chroon "When you’re strange, Faces come out of the rain, When you’re strange, No one remembers your name, When you’re strange". If you care about understanding the lyrics, you would realise this song's about hallucination, most possibly due to drugs.

"The Ghost song" sounds frighteningly modern, a sharp contrast to all the rest of the tracks in this album. This enchanced CD also includes a MTV of this song which looks really cool, albeit the poor video quality [its in .mov]. what do you think? this is a 1996 album. At that time, its still pentium 100Mhz. The song just goes on with relaxing keyboards and guitars phasing in and out, with Morrison's sexy [yes. sexy. yes. trust me] voice reciting his ever so poetic lyrics. I can't help it but this sounds so much like the background music while skydiving.

the rest of the songs are also mightily charming although the lengthy tracks are really long. So do trust uncle damon, go buy and listen. If you need a sample, do msn me and i'll send you a audio sample to tempt you to spend money on The Doors =]

--damon kohl:

U2 - How to dismantle an Atom Bomb

Disclaimer: This review is written by a U2 fan. Pls note that there WILL be bias, so don’t tell me I ain’t neutral. Because I ain’t =) and I got a C6 for GP so bear with my inglish.

This album is the follow-up to U2’s very successful 2000 release “All that you can’t leave behind”. To be frank, I’m expecting lots of good stuff in here. After all, U2 is a multi-Grammy winner, with superb records like Rattle and Hum, Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby! , I was half expecting a classic. Yes, I’m a demanding fan =)

To put it simply [if you’re lazy to read the rest of the review], this album is good. Give it more listens. You will love it!

Naturally it would be hard not to compare this album with their 2000 release, which boasts of U2 at their pop-ish best with lots of radio-friendly hits. To be fair, at the first listen it feels almost similarly tuned to its predecessor, but on subsequent listens, the album does stand out differently. U2 has always strived to be unique in each of their albums, and this formula has not really changed. Edge’s guitar riffs are at his rockish best. I mean it. It’s as if he finally decided to WHACK the distortion level of his Marshalls (just a guess) up to hard rock tones. Bono, oh what can I say about him. He ranks up, up there in my list of favourite singers, for his ability to reach subtle wide ranging notes and the fusion of emotion into his singing which is so much lacking in many of today’s rock acts. I don’t quite know how to put this in words, but listen closely and you will find many ‘gems’ in the singing. Lots of impromptu chanting, beautiful sort of moments one can only get from hearing live. Somehow, you get the feel the gang is having a lot of fun jamming these songs.

There’s this theme in the album, and if I had only 1 word to describe it, it would be: joyful. [Contrary to the somberness of the title … ]. There seems to be [again] many songs on love, life, relationships, but even the depressing ones have a triumphant mood to it. Hmm. I shall go through the songs then…
Vertigo (3:13)
Ok. It certainly wasn’t an intro like Sunday Bloody Sunday [their best opener!], but it’s still their best single. To be honest, this track on its own sounds absolutely fantastic, but it does feel out of place among the entire album. It’s like, they had to make a single for an album so they wrote this, without much consideration into the theme of the entire album[sth which I feel is impt]. Still, the tune is catchy, it almost leads me to think this album would be another War …
Miracle Drug (3:54)
Which didn’t materialize! [ok, expectations way too high la]. Still, this melodic poppish song showcases Bono at the best of his vocal abilities. Edge really let loose with his guitars on this one.
Sometimes You Can't Make it On Your Own (5:05)
Best bet for second single. IMO their best song in the whole album, lovely, lovely arrangement of a soulful song … never would anyone have doubts on Bono’s voice. He is just like a songbird on this track. Brilliant!
Love and Peace or Else (4:48)
U2 never fails to put 1 politically charged song in every release, and this is the one. Nothing too spectacular though.
“Lay it down
Lay down your guns
All you daughters of Zion
All your Abraham's sons”
City of Blinding Lights (5:46)
I had thought this song to be a replica or Where the Streets Have No Name, which was a fantastic song. I think this song attempts to sound like it [even the track title sounds like WTSHNN …Am I imagining too much ??]. Beautiful love song this track is.
Blessings not just for the ones who kneel
Luckily
All Because of You (3:33)
Oh another potential single! Hehe. Catchy chorus, radio friendly song. But it’s not one which will grow on me over time [seems the case with me n radio-ready songs].
A Man and A Woman (4:27)
Bono sings about the strains in relationships. Lyrically one of their strongest on the track. Another lovely track.
Crumbs from Your Table (4:59)
Oddly titled song, but one of the more beautiful ones on this track
One Step Closer (3:47)
Absolutely love this one. “the heart that hurts Is a heart that beats”, struck a chord totally. I love this song ! It could very well be their next single…
Original of the Species (4:34)
Nice nice nice nice nice !!!! The intro sounds very much like a music box, the rest of the song is so melodic you would almost know-for-sure the next progression of the song. Think ‘Walk On’ . cool !
Yahweh (4:22)
Sounds like a shoutout to close the album. YahWeh. I do find the ending a bit flat though.
Fast Cars (Bonus Track)
Sorry, mine’s not the bonus issue. =p

Overall, to be as unbiased as I can be, this will be one of the better albums of 2004. Unfortunately, as of now, it doesn’t stand out as one of U2’s classics, simply because it does sound quite similar to their previous one. It still holds its own for the little gems this album contains, and I’m sure, with more listens over the weeks, who knows? I may be wrong. It’s still a very polished album, if this was their debut it would definitely rank way up high, but given my [quite high] expectations, it falls just short. Still, it’s one album U2 fans will surely want in their collection. Believe me, give it a few listens. The album grows on you =)

Rating [is this necessary? Must I quantify? Heh]:
4 out of 5 – Worth plenty of listens.

Yours Truly - N0netheless! One stop alternative/rock music review blog!

"In our minds we were making reasonably left-field, arty pop music. And yet we were getting screamed at as if we were a bunch of tough guys singing ballads with a dance routine. Graham got upset. Alex liked it. I just thought it was really inappropriate." - Dave on the "Parklife" hysteria.

hi. Why N0netheless.blogspot.com? the very reason is because thats only band [if you classify that as one..]i've been in as the pathetic lead guitarist. All I can say is that I had great experiences with the exbandmates. Quite sad it ended without a note. whatever.

This place will be sorta maintained by me [Damon] and Hans[guitarist from band tentatively[temporarily for like a few years..] The Bachelors Club]. It all started with Hans suggesting that since I had said so much [way too much right?] on my personal blog and why not devote a site purely to it [a sinister plan to make my personal blog less torturing by removing the music bits]. So heres it. n0netheless.blogspot.com

Bewarned, you will not find boybands [name one for me now other than those that are already in pop idol graveyards now. remember Code Red? Ultra? New Kids on the block? Boyzone? even BSB?] even worse, chances are, you will not find mainstream rock groups here, like Switchfoot or stuff. so. warnings put across.

i strongly urge you guys to purchase the albums I/Hans had reviewed cos they're really good. support original!