When You're Strange: [Soundtrack] 2010

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

When You're Strange: [Soundtrack] April 2010



The documentary was the worst ever done on The Doors but the soundtrack is pretty dull as well.
Johnny Depp reading Jim's poems is a poor substitute but why they did not use Jim rather then an actor who would be washed up a decade later is worthy of debate.
The music, little as there is, remains peerless and even the shit stain of this awful documentary could not tarnish that.
But overall better to buy the real thing than waste cash on this useless addition to the band catalogue.

As expected it did not trouble the charts reaching #156 and then vanished after a week.
In Europe it was as anonymous as it was forgettable.
I played it once and then did forget about it until today.

### see the video section for my (rather long but I got very into it) critique of the documentary.
newdoorstalk.proboards.com/thread/1278/when-re-strange-critique


1. Poem: Cinema - By Johnny Depp
2. Poem: The Spirit Of Music - By Johnny Depp
3. Moonlight Drive
4. Poem: The Doors Of Perception - By Johnny Depp
5. Break On Through [To The Other Side] [Live at The Isle
6. Poem: A Visitation Of Energy - By Johnny Depp
7. Light My Fire [Live on The Ed Sullivan Show] [Mono]
8. To Be A Real Superstar [Interview Segment] - By Jim
9. Five To One
10. Poem: Wasting The Dawn - By Johnny Depp
11. When The Music's Over [Live on Danish TV] [Mono]
12. The Four Of Us Are Musicians / I'd Like Them To Listen
13. Hello, I Love You
14. Dead Serious [Interview Segment] - By Jim Morrison
15. People Are Strange
16. Poem: Inside The Dream - By Johnny Depp
17. Soul Kitchen
18. Poem: We Have Been Metamorphosized - By Johnny
19. Poem: Touch Scares - By Johnny Depp
20. Touch Me

When You're Strange: [Soundtrack]
Released: April 2010
US: Billboard peak: # 156 (1 week)





Johnny Depp to feature on Doors album.
Hollywood actor to read Jim Morrison's poetry on soundtrack album for forthcoming documentary.

The soundtrack album for a forthcoming Doors documentary will feature 12 of the band's classic songs, five rare clips – and 15 tracks of Johnny Depp reading poetry. The actor appears on almost half of the record's cuts, reciting verse written by Jim Morrison.

Depp provides the narration for When You're Strange, a film by Tom DiCillo. The documentary draws on hundreds of hours of footage of the Los Angeles group, from their early beginnings to Morrison's death in 1971.
It recently played at the Berlin film festival, where Doors drummer John Densmore said he "got a little teary" when he saw footage of the band's late singer.

"It shows Jim in the beginning, his innocence and shyness and everything, and I love seeing that – that's the Jim I knew," Densmore told Mojo. The film also suggests that the Doors would have reunited, even after Morrison left the US to live in Paris. "[Jim] asked how [Doors album] LA Woman was doing and I said, 'Great,'" Densmore recalled.
"I told him that Love Her Madly was the single and that they wanted a second single. He said, 'Well, maybe I'll come back.'"

Morrison published only two volumes of poetry before his death, but more of his books have been issued since then. Recordings of Morrison reading his own work have also appeared on various Doors anthologies.

The soundtrack to When You're Strange will be released by Rhino on 6 April.
Sean Michaels Guardian Newspaper, 12th March 2010.




'When You’re Strange' soundtrack to feature Johnny Depp, rare Doors shows

The soundtrack of the upcoming Doors documentary When You're Strange will feature Johnny Depp reciting several selections of poetry by Jim Morrison, according to a March 9 announcement, as well as interviews and rare live recordings of the band. Pre-orders are now being accepted for the album, which will be available April 6.

When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors, which will see a very limited US release on April 9, is directed by Tom DiCillo and narrated by Johnny Depp.
The film will include footage filmed between 1965 and 1971, tracking the band from film school beginnings to sold-out arenas.

In conjunction with the film, Rhino is set to release two double-LP live collections, Absolutely Live and Live in New York, on March 16, followed by When You're Strange: Songs from the Motion Picture.
The soundtrack reportedly includes several selections of Jim Morrison's poetry read by Depp, 14 songs that survey The Doors' six albums, and interview clips and rare live performances from The Ed Sullivan Show, Danish television, and the Isle Of Wight Festival.

The Independant
Thursday, 11 March 2010

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Narrated by Johnny Depp and directed by Tom Dicillo, When You’re Strange is the first full-length documentary film about The Doors, and it was released in select theatres on April 9, 2010. This soundtrack to the film features studio recordings, live tracks, as well as Morrison’s poetry recited by Johnny Depp in between the songs. There are also a few interview segments, including one of Morrison’s profound thoughts: “I’ve noticed that when people are joking they’re usually dead serious, and when they’re dead serious, it’s usually pretty funny.”

The title of the film is taken from “People Are Strange” when the band sings, “When you’re strange / faces come out of the rain / when you’re strange / no one remembers your name.” Some highlights of this collection include a live recording of “Light My Fire” on the Ed Sullivan Show where Morrison sang the lyric: “Girl we couldn’t get much higher”, which got them banned from the show. They were told to change the lyrics, but of course, Morrison wouldn’t think of doing that. There is also a great live recording of “Break On Through” from The Isle of Wight and a hypnotic twelve and a half minute “When the Music’s Over” performed live on Danish TV.

The poetic interludes are a nice addition to the disc, and Depp has a perfectly mysterious voice that gives the words just the right tone. From their formation in 1965 until Morrison’s death in 1971, this iconic rock group released six albums and changed the face of rock ‘n’ roll forever. The documentary features all four members as themselves, with archival footage of Morrison, and it is sure to be a legendary tribute to their lives and work. It also includes previously unseen footage of the band, and it is an insightful look at the music, the band, and the historical moment they were in.

Reviewed by: Tessa Perkins (Vancouver) For Press+1
09th April 2010



The Doors’ When You’re Strange Soundtrack

If I hadn’t been gifted a copy of the Jim Morrison biography Break On Through as a 14-year old, I may never have been exposed to Rimbaud and Huxley, subsequently thwarting the passion for literature I’ve had ever since.
But 15 years and a whole lot of music and poetry later, hearing the dated music of the Doors and Morrison’s mediocre poetry (as read by Johnny Depp) juxtaposed on the soundtrack to yet another film about the Doors just isn’t exciting.
When You’re Strange might be a cool documentary, with rare footage and a focus on Morrison as a poet, but (unlike the unearthing of new Hendrix or Nick Drake tracks) there’s really nothing new to experience here musically.

Looking back, the Doors played a whole lot of shitty music (anyone heard “Running Blues”?) and sometimes took hundreds of drunken and/or stoned vocal takes to get anything acceptable from Morrison.
As the story goes, one late-60’s session was so bad that as a last-ditch effort they tried to record Morrison while he received fellatio from his girlfriend. With his sumptuously howl, his bare chest, leather pants and long hair, Morrison was the prototype for countless rock, punk and alternative frontmen – from Iggy Pop to Eddie Vedder to the Black Angels’ Alex Maas – but by the time of his death in 1971 at age 27 Morrison’s voice and mind had so deteriorated due to intense substance abuse that he sounded like a washed up old lounge singer.

A handful of timeless Doors tracks certainly stick with people as they get older – “Soul Kitchen” and “Peace Frog” for instance – but the L.A. band was only together for about five years and it’s been 39 since Morrison’s death effectively ended the relevant careers of everyone else in the group. In essence, the farther we get from the Doors’ late-60’s run of hit albums, and the farther we get from our love of the Doors as teenagers, the more clear it becomes that Morrison was mostly famous for his bombastic, unhealthy reputation and his good looks than his hit-or-miss lyrics and singing.

Still, if you’re a teenager – and can prove it – email me and I’ll give you my review copy of When You’re Strange.

by Adam Perry for The Albuquerque Alibi
April 9th, 2010

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

It has often been said that Jim Morrison’s untimely death at the age of 27 was the best career move he ever made. It was certainly a lucrative detour as far as his record labels are concerned.

Since Morrison popped his snakeskin boots in 1971, The Doors’ back catalogue – consisting of six albums recorded between 1967 and 1971 – has been reissued and repackaged several times, and compiled into no fewer than 12 best-of compilations. Add in the various live recordings posthumously released via the band’s own website, and there are now over twice as many Doors albums in existence than there were during their lifetime.

And sing Hosanna, here comes another one. When You’re Strange: Songs From the Motion Picture is the soundtrack to a feature-length documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Tom DiCillo. A concise best-of in all but name, it contains 14 of The Doors’ most popular songs, only three of which appear in previously unreleased forms.

So why should you buy it, especially if you already own this material? Well, do you own a Doors compilation containing snippets of Morrison’s poetry recited by Johnny Depp?

The narrator of DiCillo’s film, Depp crops up between virtually every track, solemnly intoning Morrison’s imagistic ramblings to a backing of lapping waves and whistling winds. At best, his contributions lend the album a continuous flow, although at times it sounds more like a demented relaxation tape being constantly interrupted by The Doors.

Depp’s contributions are, however, brief; likewise the snippets of interviews with Morrison and his bandmates. The music itself, it goes without saying, is great, especially the propulsive live version of Break on Through (To the Other Side) from the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970, and the infamous performance of Light My Fire from The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967.

But, completists aside, no one really needs this curio. Newcomers are advised to seek one of the many available compilations, all of which contain the same songs as you’ll find here, but crucially without interruption from Captain Jack Sparrow.

BBC Music Reviews
Paul Whitelaw June 21st 2010


When You’re Strange Original Soundtrack Rhino

“Cinema; air of alchemy, last of an erotic science.” So wrote Jim Morrison in one of his enigmatic poems, read by Johnny Depp at the start of this album.
It’s a suitably artsy beginning for a collection celebrating one of the most mythologised bands of all time, who haven’t been particularly well-served on the silver screen.

When You’re Strange will find greater favour with fans than Oliver Stone’s lacklustre biopic, not least because it focuses on the group’s creative output, rather than the drugs and demons to which Stone gave equal billing.
Hence, the soundtrack cherry-picks the best-loved music, both in previously available album recordings and less familiar live renditions from TV performances – a version of When The Music’s Over from Danish television is especially atmospheric.

Punctuating the songs with further readings by Depp, plus snippets of interviews from all four members, gives the impression of telling the group’s story, albeit not in any straightforward linear fashion, without recourse to overanalysis.

But although this additional material prevents the album from being classified as just another compilation, it’s presumably what devotees will snap up – with moving pictures –

when the movie arrives on DVD.

Terry Staunton
Classic Rock Magazine Summer 2010

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

I for one thought the Soundtrack album as awful as the film.
Not because of any of the music which is brilliant as usual but for the utter waste that was Johnny Depp reading Jim's poetry.
Like his narrative it sounds like he is reading the instructions for a ready meal.
If they wanted to do something special they should have got The Doors (alive and dead) to read the poetry.
Now that would have been special.
This was certainly not!

[aztecadoors]

The only thing that was good was the LMF from Sulivan...the rest of the album sucked!

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

The original People Are Strange was re released for Record Store Day 2010 and like the Soundtrack was pretty forgettable.
The music of course was sublime. What it represented not so.