The Electronic Tribute To The Doors

1) Five To One - Private Benjamin 2) Crystal Ship - The Galactic Achievement Society 3) When The Music's Over - Motor Industries 4) Touch Me - Dissolve 5) Riders On The Storm - The Galactic Achievement Society 6) Break On Through (To The Other Side) - Bug Funny Foundation 7) People Are Strange - Motor Industries 8) Peace Frog - Dogooder 9) The End - Bug Funny Foundation 10) The Galactic Achievement Society

Hmmm, looks like All Music guide isn’t too hot on this album, as they have gave it one and half stars, calling the artists who played on this album as “faceless”, the executives who work at Vitamin Records as “money hungry”, and stating that overall it’s very hard to recommend this album to “anyone with even a passing interest in the Doors or electronica.”

Huh. Well, that’s too bad, because I enjoyed it quite a bit. The songs themselves are VERY different from the originals that they are deprived from, to the point where it may turn people off. However, unlike the Rush tribute album I previously reviewed, the essence of the songs, for the most point, are not lost, which therefor makes these renditions quite interesting.

The first half of the album is pure electronic bliss. The opening number, Five To One, is covered by a group called Private Benjamin, and they successfully captures the angry and dark spirit of the piece, from the monk chorus that drones all throughout the song, to the electronic sound effects that are scattered all over the piece, to the contrast between the whispering vocals and the abrasive music. This seems like this shouldn’t work, but it does. It all comes together very well, and I think I like this version just as much as the original.

Up next is The Crystal Ship, performed by The Galactic Achievement Society. Redone as a laid back, funky synthesized instrumental, can I understand how one could view this as simply easy listening background music, but nevertheless, I find myself tranquilized by the extraterrestrial atmosphere it creates, with the piece reminiscing Monolake, Pink Floyd, and jazz fusion all simultaneously.

From there, we have Motor Industries recreating When The Music's Over as a mid-tempo, dub instrumental. It starts out pretty easy going and silly until suddenly, during the chorus, it gains momentum and becomes more harsh and noisy. Then comes Dissolve's vaguely straightforward cover of Touch Me, which is redone as an electro-pop song. This sounds like a horrible idea, but original structure and melody is remained intact, and the electronic instrumentation seems to, surprisingly, fit in quite well with the original piece, so this rendition gets a thumbs up from me.

The Galactic Achievement Society returns again with Riders On The Storm, and although I've always found this piece to be a tad overlong, there are a good amount of entertaining ideas nevertheless. The song still maintains the dark atmosphere of the original, but through the use of eerie keyboards, the mood is strengthened even more. The guitar that plays the lead melody sounds similar to something out of a western movie, so it does make the piece feel like soundtrack music to an extent, but it fits in well, so I’ll give it that. 

The second half of the album, however, isn’t as consistent. The only thing that truly sticks out for me is Motor Industries fun, but short, rendition of People Are Strange, which is catchy as hell and fueled with different ideas, noises, and sound effect that work together well. Not sure what genre I can describe it as, though. Dub maybe? Eh, maybe not. Anyways, The Galactic Achievement Society makes it's third appearance through a groovy original composition at the end called Spanish Fire Women, which does sound somewhat like The Doors, and although it's pretty funny in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way, it's not very memorable in the end. However, despite Bug Funny Foundation's attempts, Break On Through does not sound fit within a breakcore beat, nor does Dogooder improve Peace Frog by splashing WAY too many sounds and ideas onto it. But, perhaps the biggest disappointment was Bug Funny Foundation's rendition of The End. Based on how well done the last two “atmospheric” Doors songs were (Crystal Ship, Riders On The Storm), I was expecting this to be a GREAT eight minute epic rendition. Unfortunately, all that BFF change from the original is the instrumentation, which is now completely electronic. As a result, the song becomes incredibly uninteresting, since what was enticing about The End to begin with was the subtle interplay between the guitar, keyboards, and drums, resulting in an ghostly atmosphere that made Jim Morrison’s stream of conscious rants in the piece actually impacting as opposed to goofy. Take that all out, replace it with a repetitive electronic backing track, throw in a women singer who doesn’t give the slightest bit of emotion when she sings and recites the lyrics to the songs, and boom you get something that doesn’t seem to go anywhere at all. There are some interesting moments, and at times it does feel hypnotizing, but it doesn’t sink me in the same way original does. To their credit, it’s not horrible, and this is a piece that I could only imagine The Doors pulling off, so making a successful full length rendition is not easy, and with that in mind, I do respect their effort.

All in all, while not everything on here works super well, it's very enjoyable for the most part. I will agree with the All Music Guide that it is very difficult to recommend this to either Doors fans, electronica fans, or anyone else. I mean, people who listen to The Doors and people who listen to electronica seem to be on different musical wave lengths, and if you aren’t a fan of either, you certainly aren't going to like this. However, I think that if you have an open mind, and enjoy listening to anything no matter how obscure or unusual it is, then you too will be glad that this exists, even if this album is simply a commercial attempt to broaden Vitamin Records audience to a wider crowd.