The Soft Parade by the Doors (Vinyl record album review)

Album name: The Soft Parade

Group name: the Doors

Year: 1969

Number of discs: one

Label: Elektra Records

Collection: Selman

Distinguishing characteristics:

Scratched into side one of LP: ESR TD5 2876 EKS 75005 A-SP 8

Scratched into side two of LP: ESR TD5 2876 EKS 75005 B-SP 5

Buy it on Amazon: $35.99

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’m pretty sure that I’ve never heard this record before. A couple of its songs were also on the Doors’ compilation 13 (1970) that I rated 4/5.

The other Doors record that I’ve reviewed was The Doors (1969) and I rated it 5/5.

What I expected

Probably this will not be one of the Doors’ stronger records.

What it was actually like

This was much jazzier than other Doors records, with lots of brass on (I think) every song.

I had always thought of Doors songs like Touch Me as a kind of parody of pre-rock and roll pop music (like, for example, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass), but after listening to an entire record that was much more like that, I wasn’t sure what to think about it.

The saxophone solo on Touch Me was fine, by the way, but I did wonder while listening to it if, in the event that Morrison had lived, the Doors would have become one of those crappy Vegas acts, and the string section on Wishful Sinful was similarly weird and gave me the same thoughts.

I liked the organ on Shaman’s Blues, and strongly disliked the grating Wild Child.

Easy Ride was the most Oompa Loompa song and also the most up tempo, with good guitar and organ solos.

The most surprising part of the record was the bluegrass-style part of Runnin’ Blue, with a brief but excellent mandolin part. I hated that song’s trumpet part, though.

The title track The Soft Parade, which ran over eight minutes long, was multiple songs in one, which really should have been broken out into individual tracks.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me