You don't hate The Doors, you hate Ray Manzarek

Jimmy did nothing wrong—aside from maybe the whole "CIA" thing

The Doors suck. I mean, that's what everyone tells me these days.

It's not as though The Doors have ever been all that sacred but the frenzy with which people currently hate them is... you know, maybe a bit much. I had a friend once lambast me for calling “We Built This City” the worst song of all time, claiming I was just regurgitating tired rock critic opinions, and, regardless of whether or not “We Built This City” is the worst song of all time, that's probably (definitely) true. I suspect the same thing about Doors haters.

Now, firstly, there'd be no Stooges without The Doors, most certainly considering Iggy got the whole idea by attending a Doors show in the first place. Most people already know that part, and so maybe accept that The Doors were a necessary sacrifice we had to endure in order to get punk rock. Okay. So there. I've at the very least proven we shouldn't un-exist The Doors in some kind of time-travel-kill-baby-Hitler scenario. That's progress.

Jim Morrison is, undeniably, a piss poor poet. A friend once “gifted” me a copy of The Lords and the New Creatures and reading it was fucking excruciating. We are no longer friends. Not because of the book thing, but maybe that had some influence. Just take a look at this shit:

He goes to see the girl of the ghetto.
Dark savage streets.
A hut, lighted by candle. She is magician Female prophet Sorceress
Dressed in the past All arrayed.
The stars The moon
She reads the future in your hand.

How about this one?

This we know
that all are free
in the school-made
text of the unforgiven
deceit smiles
incredible hardships are suffered
by those barely able
to endure

These are cheap shots—I don't think there's anyone out there seriously defending Morrison's abilities as a poet these days, but I mean, you don't necessarily have to be a good poet to write good lyrics—have you ever actually read a book of Leonard Cohen's poems? He's dogshit!

Kanye West is not Picasso
I am Picasso
Kanye West is not Edison
I am Edison
I am Tesla
Jay-Z is not the Dylan of anything
I am the Dylan of anything
I am the Kanye West of Kanye West
The Kanye West
Of the great bogus shift of bullshit culture
From one boutique to another

I mean, the man's not wrong here—Jay-Z's continual attempts to stack himself up next to his obvious betters are extremely laughable, and the “Bob Dylan of rap” is probably more believably Kool G Rap—but Cohen’s expression is nevertheless... lacking. Still, he's capable of making “Chelsea Hotel #2” extremely evocative, and likewise “Riders on the Storm” may be a stinker on paper but Morrison knows how to sell the hell out of it. He was a serviceable lyricist and a fine frontman.

Was he also a CIA asset? I mean, most definitely, his dad single-handedly orchestrated the Gulf of Tonkin incident and then within a couple months his cleancut son had shaggy hair and was fronting a hippy band. Total psyop. But could he move a bop, even one ostensibly written by the US State Department? Absolutely.

The audacity that The Doors had in order to go on without the charismatic sex symbol who was undeniably their primary draw—it sort of reminds me of how intent Brian May was that Queen go on post-Freddie Mercury. At least John Deacon had it figured out and refused to take part. You idiots seriously thought you could replace Freddie Mercury with Adam fucking Lambert? Tying back to the comment on the worst song of all time, that could very well be "Breaking A Sweat" by Skrillex featuring The Doors. Their work without Jim is extremely embarrassing—how does one "ride" a tightrope, Ray??? What the fuck does that mean???

So you think The Doors are good, you say. Well, no. See, The Doors do actually suck, but it has nothing to do with their beautiful baritone CIA agent frontman, and everything to do with RAY MANZAREK'S TERRIBLE FUCKING CLOWN CAR ORGAN SOUND. You cannot escape it. It's a near constant. Every time a Doors song is almost good, there he is, in the corner, making even the most serious and pained of their tracks sound like an ice cream truck. You'll hear, say, the opening groove to something like "Ship of Fools" and it sounds kind of cool but then BAM there's Ray Manzarek to the rescue, saving us from the dreaded Good Times while sounding like Count Dracula on MDMA. Really laid the groundwork for happy hardcore. You can't even separate the organ in the mix if you wanted to, I've tried, I've been that desperate, and it's next to impossible.

Even when he's not honking away, even when he's just playing piano, he's always doing this cheesy fucking honky tonk thing? I can't fucking stand it. Leave the honky tonk to Elton John and the death metal bands, I say. And leave Ray Manzarek out of The Doors.