|
|
Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 20, 2005 16:59:07 GMT
The Doors: Complete Studio Recordings Cube. Released back in 1999 as a bizarre looking cube in the original sleeves the COMPLETE studio recordings was both dissapointing and intriguing as well as with all Doors product comparitivly expensive.
Missing the two 3 Door albums Other Voices and Full Circle it was anything but complete. However hearing The End in all its glory as well as the 'higher' vamping in Break On Through made it worthwhile. Of course later when Doors PLC released a DVD of LA Woman it could be argued that the version on the DVD could easily have been included as part of this package.
Of course Doors PLC soon forgot their promise that this (like the box set) was a one off limited edition affair and released single albums and a long box version of the same cube effort shortly after.
At over 80 pound (when I bought it) it was twice as much as similar product by other 70s artists but its promised rarity value made it a must......infuriating that that rarity value was wiped out by the PLCs usual greed.... 
Annoyingly a chance to include a worthwhile rarity disc was squandered as the 7th disc was the appalling named 'Essential Rarity' disc which was just bits from the box set with Woman Is A Devil stuck on to tempt fans to buy.....so many promises have been reneged on with regards Doors out-takes and rare tracks and made worse now plans are afoot to release this whole thing again with improved sound and rarities ...where does this greed end we are entitled to ask?....
 
Any of you get it and what did you think?
|
|
|
|
Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 20, 2005 17:01:21 GMT
THE DOORS
The Complete Studio Recordings
All six Doors albums, each in its own jacket replicating the original LP artwork, plus an entire disc of rarities, including demos, live cuts, stage banter, and the bonus track “Woman Is A Devil.”
Fronted by the enigmatic Jim Morrison, The Doors embodied mystery and excess at a time when many bands were basking in the Summer Of Love. Morrison hypnotized audiences with poetry and sex appeal as the band's swirling sounds stretched the limits of blues and psychedelia. Riding a quick local groundswell to international fame, The Doors blazed fast and bright through a career marked by explosive live shows and a string of acclaimed albums, including The Doors, Morrison Hotel, and L.A. Woman.
Rhino blurb...
The Incomplete Studio Recordings.
Most Doors fans are aware by now that the Doors are the masters of repackaging and reissuing material that everyone already has. This release, The Complete Studio Recordings, is no exception. Despite that, I think this box set is worth a look. Included are the six studio albums released by the band while Jim Morrison was still alive; The Doors (1967), Strange Days (1967), Waiting for the Sun (1968), The Soft Parade (1969), Morrison Hotel (1970), and L.A. Woman (1971), along with a disc of demos, b-sides (including the excellent "Who Scared You", previously unreleased songs, and live tracks all culled from the 1997 Doors Box Set. All in all, this is a worthy purchase if you already own this material or not. The sound quality of these remastered CDs is crystal clear and the presentation and packaging of this box set is fantastic, down to the little cardboard album sleeves. However, there are a few things missing, namely, the seventh and eighth Doors albums made by Densmore, Manzarek and Kreiger - Other Voices (1971) and Full Circle (1972) (although those CDs have recently been released separately in Europe,since they have inexplicably not been released or seemingly even ackowledged in the US.
Not the best Doors albums, but are worth seeking out for the should-have-been-a-hit "Tightrope Ride" and the sequel to "Riders on the Storm", "Ships w/Sails"). The spoken word album An American Prayer (1978) is also not included here. I can understand the omission of a few songs from a box set that calls itself "complete", but entire albums? Also, some unreleased Morrison tracks are also not included here - e.g. Paris Blues. Are you listening, Elektra? However, if you are not concerned with the rare material, this set will provide you with the depth of the Doors great music not available in a "Greatest Hits" or "Best Of" collection, all in one attractive package.
Amazon review... |
|
|
|
Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on May 3, 2006 16:15:54 GMT
The Doors: Complete Studio Recordings Long Box. This release left a sour taste for fans who forked out a lot of money to get the Cube.
Only to find a lot cheaper Long Box release with the same shit in.
The greed of this crew knows no bounds.
The first box set ripped us off by having another fucking Best Of taking up 25% of the release and here these crooks once again give us 'Essential Rarities' (my fucking arce) Best Of the first box with a single rare track to tempt those who were completists.
I've never come across a band that is so greedy and treats its fans as walking wallets.
'Value for money' and The Doors are the antithesis of each other and it would never occur that The Doors would do something really special at a decent price just for their fans. 
"It's no surprise that almost three decades after their watery demise, The Doors - and Jim Morrison, in particular - still inspire love and hate in equal measures.
It's no surprise that almost three decades after their watery demise, The Doors - and Jim Morrison, in particular - still inspire love and hate in equal measures. Their comparatively brief career might have yielded some of the most powerful and evocative music of the '60s, but it was also the catalyst for some of the worst atrocities in rock'n'roll history.
The embodiment of the maxim a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, Morrison arrived with his philosophy fully formed - and amazingly, its bodged-together, half-baked hybrid of ancient mythology and romantic derangement was not only enough to blow the minds of a generation of flower children, it's still enough to freak out European rock fans even to this day. Worse, this cod-intellectualism and the band's occasionally baroque musicianship arguably opened the door for the ghastly prog excesses of the mid-'70s.
Still, Morrison at least had the good grace to walk it like he slurred it. His confrontational, apolitical hedonism (he once poleaxed an audience in Miami with the words, "I'm not talking about no revolution, I'm not talking about no demonstration, I'm not talking about getting out on the streets, I'm talking about having some fun") was the inspiration for Iggy Pop and thus punk rock, while his lyrical fixations with sex and disobedience made The Doors a soundtrack to the disintegrating Utopia of the '60s in a way The Velvet Underground could only dream about.
What's more, as this box set (the complete studio recordings, a handful of rarities and one unreleased blues travesty called, all too inevitably, 'Woman Is A Devil') proves, The Doors were a great band. Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek might have been the sort of highly trained musos you'd cross the road to avoid, but the power and delicacy of the sound they created is unparalleled. In four years, they produced six albums, of which only 1969's 'The Soft Parade' - with its abundance of Krieger songs and Morecambe & Wise orchestral trimmings - would struggle to be called a classic.
Although emphasis is often put on their elongated spacerock freak-outs ('The End', 'When The Music's Over', 'Riders On The Storm' and even 'Light My Fire'), The Doors were more than capable of succinct, melodic pop. 'Morrison Hotel', 1970's underrated album, was entirely devoted to these short, crisper songs, while their three undoubted masterpieces ('The Doors', 'Strange Days' and 'LA Woman') are all liberally sprinkled with examples of this more concise approach, from 'Break On Through (To The Other Side)' all the way to 'Love Her Madly'.
By the time of 1971's 'LA Woman', the band had immersed themselves in the blues tradition they'd been flirting with since their inception. It gave their finale - Morrison was to die a month after its release - a harsh resonance, and the superlative quality of its music gave The Doors the epitaph they deserved: as a great band rather than just an increasingly sad freak show."
NME 2005
|
|
|
|
Post by stuart on May 3, 2006 16:46:05 GMT
Have to say I did like the Booklet which talked about the albums, found it a pretty good read and there were really cool pics too  . |
|
|
|
Post by othercircles on May 7, 2006 4:16:05 GMT
I wonder.. was "LA Woman" released in France before July 3rd? Could some Parisian doors fan somewhere have a Jim Morrison autographed copy of "LA Woman"? That would be worth a fortune I'm sure.
|
|
|
|
Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on May 7, 2006 9:38:35 GMT
LA Woman was released in Europe in July/August Jim was already gone by that time. He did have a number of copies of the albumhimself so its likely that an autographed LA Woman actually exists but its hard to know with all the fakes.......nobody in Europe would have had a copy that they could have gotten him to autograph unless someone like Clive Selwood (Elektra's #1 in London) had brought some advance copies over and given a few out....which would take a lot of conincidences to place a copy of LAW a fan and Jim together between April (its release in USA) and July 3rd.
Not impossible but highly unlikely!
NB. Not sure if the import sevices of papers like NME and Melody Maker and the HMV were there in 1971 but I bought a copy of Golden Scarab and Rays 2nd solo album via MM in 1974 and 75 and had copies of the albums months before they were released in England.....so there is another possibility I guess
|
|
|
|
Post by othercircles on May 8, 2006 22:25:42 GMT
Maybe they were available in stores as American Imports too?
|
|
|
|
Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on May 18, 2006 11:48:47 GMT
 as the original cube   then as a long box  Russian poster for the cube set! |
|
|
|
Post by othercircles on May 18, 2006 17:14:36 GMT
I might pick up the an origional box on ebay. I've yet to get any of the first 6 on CD. Might as well get the neat mini LP ones.
|
|
|
|
Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Jun 22, 2011 20:27:28 GMT
The Doors: The Lizard King's life's work digitally remastered and packaged as vinyl replicas
Strange Days
Waiting For The Sun
The Soft Parade
Morrison Hotel
La Woman
Essential Rarities
THE DOORS still don't fit anyone else's picture, sticking uncomfortably in the gullet of the Sixties and every decade that's tried to revive them. Maybe only Arthur Lee's Love, who they directly replaced as LA's premier band, could have equalled Jim Morrison's sunlit nightmare California, its hard-edged sexual Utopia and death-stalked underbelly, played by musicians of astonishing pop resource; but Lee didn't last, so here are The Doors, to open again. The Rarities disc (from 1997's box-set) is of interest, showcasing lush MOR on 'Who Scared You?', and Morrison's vocally challenged stab at Seventies Elvis Vegas Soul Man on 'I Will Never Be Untrue'. But the band's broad musical remit is equally apparent on the 1967 debut The Doors, the sunny Sixties pop of 'I Looked At You' and the Mod snap of 'Twentieth Century Fox', indicating the discipline holding the painstakingly constructed abandon of 'Light My Fire' and 'The End' in place right up to the latter's disoriented finale.
Strange Days (1967) now sounds a low-key follow-up, the hard hammer of 'Love Me Two Times' countered by adrift psychedelia and naively chucked-in sonic effects. Waiting For The Sun (1968), their commercial peak, is more confident, clipped hit 'Hello, I Love You' contrasting with Love-style psychedelic baroque ('Spanish Caravan') and the pastoral 'Yes, the River Knows', among their most artfully beautiful songs.
1969's widely derided LA-Philharmonic-and-jazz-muso-abetted The Soft Parade still sounds a gaudy aberration, and none the worse for it, Robbie Krieger (their unsung hit-maker) seizing the reins from a deteriorating Morrison to write a slickly uplifting pop sequence which the aghast singer could only arrest with the title track's equally manic attempt at encapsulating the straight, suburban LA they elsewhere seemed so distant from.
Morrison Hotel came in 1970, its listlessly extended riffs and too-literal embracing of always-present blues roots are suggestive of the Led Zep-ruled world they'd survived the Sixties to uncertainly compete in. But LA Woman (1971) proved their undimmed force, at its finest on 'Riders On The Storm', the voice Morrison would kill just before (however "accidentally") himself refined to a throat-ripped growl, as hissing rain-patter ambience conjures the shivering sexual thrill of imagining a psychopath close.
There aren't many rock bodies of work as worth owning as this, not many bands who discomforted, provoked and played with such committed resource, right to the finish.
Nick Hasted, Uncut, November 2000
|
|
|
|
Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Jan 9, 2012 23:04:54 GMT
Another fanzine review from 2000/2001
Doors Box Sets– good value or bollocks
COMPLETE STUDIO RECORDINGS -there I`ve contradicted what I just said by buying this set but what the hell. Awkward sort of box but presentable enough . Booklet has some nice pix and decent text but not a patch on the Box Set brochure. The music is obviously brilliant and “The End” comes out great but as to what 24 bit technology does I haven`t a bloody clue . Once again we fans are let down as the bonus disc is only the best of the flaming Box Set (didn`t it occur to these idiots that the people who bought this set would have bought the Box Set as well– or once again didn`t they give a toss as long as they got our £80.) at least we got “Who scared you” properly this time and “ Devil is a woman” at last.
I don`t mean to sound critical of The Doors `cos I love the guys and I begrudge them not a penny they`ve ever earned even when it comes out of my pocket but we fans are getting a raw deal with these releases and we deserve better. The covers are nice though.
Scorpywag rating -music 10+ , idea 6/10 -OK, - bonus disc 1/10 Big rip off AP.
Review from my Fanzine in 2004 when it was re released as a long box 
The Doors: Complete Studio Recordings
Released originally as a ‘cube’ and now revamped as a Long Box another delightful Doors idea to relieve us of any heavy loads our wallets may be causing us.
Already released in about ‘four’ other formats the cube/longbox/dodecahedron promised an out-take disc to replace the ‘Less Than Essential Rarities’ rip-off disc but as we all know Doors PLC tells porkies so instead the Long Box is exactly the same as the Cube and includes the useless ‘rarity’ rip-off with ‘Woman Is a Devil’ to get us to buy the bloody thing in the first place.
The newer studio versions of course warrant attention as ‘The End’ was finally revealed in all its glory as was ‘Break On Through’ but what the world needs with a Doors long-box of what was already out as a cube has me bloody beat…...
....except that these greedy bastards will make a few ‘bob’ out of it. Wonder what's next? A circular box with all six studio albums re-digitally re-(re-)mastered with a ‘new’ ‘Essential Rarity’ disc featuring a rare recording of Jim Morrison farting an early cut of ‘Riders On The Storm’ through a comb….stranger things have happened!
Scorpywag rating: 0/10
When will Doors fans ever get a break from these money grabbing arce-holes? AP. 'The Complete Studio Recordings'
(Elektra 7559 62434 21 *****
Slightly misleading calling this boxed set 'complete' for the simple reason that this doesn't contain all the rarities included on the more definitive four-CD set of 1997.
Nit-picking aside, however, this really is quite excellent. For a start, all six studio albums featuring Jim Morrison have been digitally remas- tered to state-of-the-art standards and sound every bit as potent as you would expect them to. In addition, all the sleeve artwork has also been faithfully restored, with each album packaged like a vinyl replica, presumably to persuade plastic junkies that the endeavour is artisti- cally sound. A well-written 60-page booklet is also included, featuring all the lyrics for the first time, plus a host of photos hitherto thought lost, including many from Guy Webster's sessions for the first album.
True, the remastering aside, the enticements so far may seem largely cosmetic, so the final temptation is the seventh 'Essential Rarities' CD.
Billed as the 'Best Of The 1997 Box Set' this takes 14 cuts from the original three-hours-worth of unreleased material and does a pretty good job of sequencing a credible rarities compilation, including the comparitively rare and consequently collectable fully fleshed out version of 'Who Scared You) the edited version of which ended up on the 1997 boxed set.
To really get the completists salivating, however, is the previously unreleased 15th track, 'Woman Is A Devil' from the 1969 'Morrison Hotel' sessions - and a sharply burnished blues gem it is too, though not worth shelling out for alone if the enhanced sound quality argument fails to convince.
Classic Rock Magazine February 2000
Essi Berelian
|
|
|
|
Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Dec 22, 2022 11:49:25 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Dec 13, 2023 16:11:53 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 7, 2024 17:00:46 GMT
|
|
