Waiting for the Sun by the Doors (Vinyl record album review)

Album name: Waiting for the Sun

Group name: the Doors

Year: 1968

Number of discs: one

Label: Elektra Records

Collection: Brenner / Gessner

Who owned it: my father

Buy it on Amazon: $55.79

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I may have listened to this record at one point, but I’m not sure. I am familiar with several of its songs, though. The three other Doors records that I’ve reviewed are:

The Doors (1967): 5/5

The Soft Parade (1969): 3/5

13 (1970): 4/5

What I expected

Psychedelic rock.

What it was actually like

I did not exactly have high expectations for this record, and it met them.

My favorite song was Spanish Caravan, which was an extended Oompa Loompa riff on Albéniz’s Asturias, which you definitely know. Hearing it approached from more of a hard rock direction with guitar distortion and bells was cool.

I also thought that there were parts of Not to Touch the Earth that were excellent, despite its self conscious weirdness. Overall, though, it underscored that the Doors and Morrison were at their best when writing and performing actual songs.

Hello, I Love You has always been one of my least favorite Doors songs, and I get that it was a hit, but it’s so light on melody and so heavy on Oompa Loompa. On that note, there was a lot of Oompa Loompa on Waiting for the Sun, with Love Street, which was much less psychedelic, and We Could Be So Good Together as prime examples.

I already strongly disliked The Unknown Soldier when I listened to it on 13, and hearing it again now reminded me how dumb it was.

Summer’s Almost Gone had a regular old piano instead of their usual organ, which was strange.

Grade

2/5: bad, but I was able to listen to the whole thing