Critically Reviled Albums Due A Re-evaluation : The Doors, The Soft Parade

but c'mon -- the title song alone! "yeah, he bought a little!!"

Anyway this album sucks. Oddly, it is the only actual Doors album (not counting the live or greatest hits) that my fiancee owns, thus the only one I've had to listen to with any degree of regularity.

If revisionism ever catches up with this album, there will be hell to pay.

Do It and Easy Ride both feel like filler to me 'though and the title track has it's moments but ultimately just goes on too long and outstays it's welcome.

I loved the title track in high school (The Doors go prog?)...nowadays, it's rather goofy, of course, but it still brings a nostalgic smile to my face.

This one has its decent moments ("Running Blues", "Wishful Sinful") and its laughs ("Touch Me", the title track) but its lows are really fucking low ("Tell All the People", the title track, "Shaman's Blues", "Do It"). All in all, deservedly overlooked.

This thread is classic for the three morning-ritual posts alone, though.

Musically, however, the only things I like are Curtis Amy's tenor sax solo on "Touch Me" and Robbie Krieger's woozy slide guitar on "Wild Child".

so, that's what they're sayin!!!!
i've always strained to hear it, but never could...

of all the Doors albums, this's the one to pan.
i'm biased and i still see the glaring flaws...
a few good un's, and a slew of 'meh'.

this album is the definition of underrated

If "Running Blue" didn't have that awful, cod-country/hillbilly breakdown in it that Robbie sings it might be my favorite Doors song.

This record is kind of awesome.

Some fantastic individual tracks but it doesn't work so well for me as an entire album (not that i can say they ever really got that right -- although, they got pretty close on both their first and last albums). I love the horns where they work on many tracks including "Tell All the People" and "Touch Me" and Jim's vocal intro "Poor Otis dead and gone, left me here to sing his song, Pretty little girl with a red dress on, Poor Otis Dead and Gone" belays a track that doesn't deliver in its initial promise. The lushness of the strings and woodwinds on "Wishful Sinful" is also appreciated, but am unsure how the outtake, "Whiskey and Mystics and Men", didn't find a place on this album; maybe the host of flavors was already too expansive to include this dirge, but hell, that track fulfills the promise of the albums title more concisely than any other track from the sessions. "Soft Parade" has one strong-ass groove once it gets going, and it's one the best album codas in rock.

Soft Parade certainly stands out in their catalog as a fresh approach, so, while the highest tier of Doors albums, it still has some very classic-worthy tracks.

This record is being talked about in the "Critics' Darlings" thread. Despite having maybe their worst Jim-era song ("Easy Ride"), I would say that "Do It" is their most amusing filler, "Wishful Sinful" is their best Robbie Krieger ballad and "The Soft Parade" their best epic. They should have put the b-side "Who Scared You" on the record, although it's maybe too similar to "Shaman's Blues" to be a good fit.
Their best album is Strange Days, though. I'm not fond of the debut.

"Easy Ride" sounds like a tune Elvis Presley would sing in a film called Jambalaya Weekend or something

this album is dope as hell