Really?? The Doors?

Naomi Fry and quite a few of her guests insult, rather than honor, The Doors on their 60th anniversary. The podcast’s basic premise is that The Doors are universally considered corny and generally disliked. This is a ridiculous premise when talking about a Hall-of-Fame band headed by two UCLA film school graduates that became the first American band to have eight consecutive Gold albums, has sold over 100 million albums worldwide, and is what Naomi herself calls “maybe the greatest American band in music history.” (This should’ve been the premise of the podcast, btw.) Rather than use this platform to back up her statement with a serious, informative, critically thoughtful podcast about how this highly educated group of young men from the 60s successfully merged music, shamanism, and performance art to inspire deeper thinking & facilitate higher planes of consciousness for listeners, Naomi and her guests instead rehash Jim Morrison’s self-destructive behaviors. How original. As a result, this comes off as the podcast version of the Oliver Stone movie—intellectually and journalistically lazy. This wasn’t the way to honor Morrison and The Doors in film, and it’s not the way to do it in podcast format. Really…why bother? While volumes have been written about the human being Jim Morrison (not the showman called “The Lizard King”), what he and his bandmates accomplished through their art, and the philosophers & musicians who influenced each band member, Naomi and her guests seem oblivious to this vast source material, or at least more than willing to ignore it. They don’t seem to know much about The Doors and its frontman beyond what they saw in the Stone movie over 30 years ago and their impressions of all those 90s posters of Jim. Some guests admit they haven’t listened to The Doors since high school, if they ever did. These admissions are unnecessary because it shows in each episode that doesn’t include John Densmore. It does, however, raise the question of why they would be considered qualified to speak on the subject. To add further insult to injury, Naomi painfully asks her guests on nearly each episode, “Are The Doors cool?” Really?? Is “maybe the greatest American band in music history” cool? The question doesn’t need asking, and the audience neither lives in junior high nor looks to middle-aged peers to tell us what’s cool. Simply put…60 years on, this is not the starting point for a podcast about The Doors. Lucinda Williams and Billy Idol were excellent guests. And whereas many of Naomi’s guests seem to be indifferent to The Doors with limited knowledge of the group and much more interest in discussing punk music, listeners may have been better served if Williams and Idol had hosted the podcast, bringing their knowledge & love of The Doors, as well as their circle of guests. As it stands, the show is a missed opportunity to give listeners a serious, honest portrait of the band and its impact on music history while giving new audiences an introduction that the group deserves and has certainly earned by now.