STONED IMMACULATE: The Music of the Doors

Various Artists
(Elektra)

RATING: four

I never knew a world without the Doors. Which shouldn’t be so strange, considering I was born three years after the death of lead singer Jim Morrison. But Morrison lived the rock star stereotype so well and so completely that I don’t know if the very concept would have been the same had we not had him to draw from.

The wide and continuing influence of the Doors is paid tribute to in Stoned Immaculate, an impressive collection of Doors songs covered by modern artists working in different genres. The names are impressive, if not for their stature, then surely for their variety. Sure, you’d expect to see the Stone Temple Pilots on board, maybe even Creed and Aerosmith. But Smash Mouth, the Cult, Perry Farrell, John Lee Hooker, Days of the New? And how about the late Beat generation William S. Burroughs?

The strange collective, all claiming to have been influenced by the Doors in one way or the other, were pooled together by producer Ralph Sall, choosing those whom he thought “might best interpret the material in an interesting way.” Working with the remaining Doors members—Ray Manzarek, John Densmore, and Robby Krieger—the bands were given some of the band’s best-known songs and challenged to reinterpret them as they fit.

Still, the album opens with two Scotts bent on being Morrison’s sonic doppelgangers: STP’s Scott Weiland and Creed’s Scott Stapp sound almost eerily like Jim. STP’s “Break On Through” is remade with a few modern touches, but largely remains very faithful to the original. Creed, on the other hand, don’t even attempt any reinterpretation of “Riders on the Storm.” Creed don’t nearly have enough personality to flavor the track, a problem that Aerosmith doesn’t have—there’s little that they do to change “Love Me Two Times,” but Steven Tyler’s distinct vocal style is enough to take over the track and make it their own. Their version may not stray too far from the original, but it’s full and satisfying.
Similarly, goth rockers The Cult resurface for “Wild Child,” while lead singer Ian Astbury does one more take, for “Touch Me,” both of which are rewardingly rich, not in reinterpretation, perhaps, but in sheer personality and presence.

But tribute doesn’t always entail imitation, and the other artists on the album bring in their own influences into the other tracks. Smash Mouth takes out all the darkness from “Peace Frog,” injecting it instead with lively riffs. “While Morrison was growling about blood spilling in the streets, Smash Mouth make it sound like it’s a good thing.

Alternative rock icon Perry Farrell teams up with punk rocker and performance artist Exene to further weirdify “Children of the Night.” The Morrison poem, which the Doors later overlaid with instrumentals, is read by the arty duo as a spoken-word piece that is both haunting and oddly…well, catchy. Morrison (who always fancied himself a poet, not a rock star) would’ve been proud.

For all the big names on the album, however, the biggest are those that Morrison himself would’ve considered his peers—or his mentors, even. The late, great Beat generation poet William S. Burroughs—one of Morrison’s avowed influences—reads “Is Everybody In?” in tribute, pronouncing the poem “in the tradition…of Rimbaud and Saint Jean-Perse particularly. It’s very pure poetry. Very pure poetry.”

Then there’s blues greats Bo Diddley and John Lee Hooker, whose influences on the Doors are clear when they take on “Love Her Madly” and “Roadhouse Blues,” respectively. Done in their own style, the songs reveal their influences, sounding more pure than they ever did. The participation of these icons are more than enough reason to sit up and take notice of this album, though Doors fans will simply love the fact that Morrison’s ghost makes a number of appearances: talking to an audience on “Roadhouse Rap,” singing to Hooker’s guitars on “Roadhouse Blues,” and being accompanied by his surviving bandmates on the previously unreleased “Under Waterfall” and “The Cosmic Movie.”

This 17-track monster ends with Days of the New attempting to carry “The End,” perhaps the Doors’ most important song ever. The album cannot end any other way but with this 13-minute epic, and Days of the New have big, big shoes to fill. Unfortunately, they can’t live up to the track, which is at once so impressive and so intimate to Morrison. When Travis Meeks goes into the pivotal Oedipal poem at the heart of the song, he sounds unconvinced; beside Morrison’s unnerving original, it is indeed a pale substitute. Even with the remaining Doors helping out, “The End” is anticlimactic, making Morrison’s absence just all that more palpable.

That, however, and a few more stumbles don’t diminish the appeal of this album. Bold, imaginative, and hell, just a lot of fun to listen to, Stoned Immaculate is the best tribute album to come out in a long while. —Kristine Fonacier