Which band was better?

The Grateful Dead
Total votes: 15 (33%)
The Doors
Total votes: 31 (67%)
Total votes: 46

Re: The Doors vs The Dead

3
Oof, really?

I guess The Doors.
MoreSpaceEcho wrote: I'm voting The Dead, because I have heard them very occasionally do something somewhat mildly interesting, which is more than I can say for The Doors.
This is more or less how I feel, except flip-flop the bands.
jason (he/him/his) from volo (illinois)

Re: The Doors vs The Dead

4
The first 3 Doors albums are mostly good. Less so once they became a 'blues band', though there are moments there too. It's weird to me that it became cool to shit on them over time when Iggy, early NYC punks were obviously influenced by them.

Grateful Dead have some decent stuff when they stick to 3 minute song mode, but even then it's not something I reach for often. There's just better stuff in the California folk/americana cannon.

Intense hate for either of these bands is super fuckin' tiresome.
Music

Re: The Doors vs The Dead

5
Both of these bands are maligned in our sort of circle for obvious reasons. But they're both pretty influential and innovative. You can draw a straight line from GD's DIY approach to booking tours and loading their own PA system to Black Flag. The Doors are an essential influence on Joy Division, Siouxie etc.

If I could get past Morrison being a huge tool, sonically The Doors are pretty cool. If I could get past the tedious decades of jamming and the hemp teddy bear "good vibes" American Beauty and Working Man's Dead are solid Americana entries.

I might call it a tie. I just want to say these bands do suck for the reasons people say but they're also not given their full credit amongst our punk adjacent circles.

Edit: Whoa Pennington and I, great minds think alike!

Re: The Doors vs The Dead

7
I’ve said this before, but the major objections to The Doors are usually (a) Morrison called himself a poet, and not a mere singer; and (b) he convinced a hell of a lot of people that this was true. But his lyrics (if he even wrote them all) were no better or worse than lyrics by Cream or Hendrix or you name it. And there were plenty of other pretentious twat frontmen who we tolerate because they never succeeded in convincing the masses. I mean, Sean Bonniwell was a piece of work too.

No, the real problem with The Doors was mentioned above, and that’s the amount of filler on their records, especially the later ones. I like The Doors. At their best, they were evocative and menacing. They could rock. And if I was as good looking and famous as Morrison was, I too would be dead at 27.

The Dead, I’ve never understood. I’m glad they make people happy, and for all the trashing of their fans that I’ve done over the years, credit where it’s due: they evangelize. They want to bring people into the fold, not keep them out. And I hadn’t considered the role they played in DIY culture, so that’s another credit in their account.

But musically, it’s a big mystery to me.

Re: The Doors vs The Dead

8
This is easy. The Dead play rambling shitty country doodle piss bucket bullshit. The Doors ranged from schmaltzy crooner pop to shamanic desert rock. Their highs greatly surpass anything the Dead did. Riders On The Storm, The End, LA Woman, plenty of other bangers. Was Morrison a clown? Sure, but that's his job.

Re: The Doors vs The Dead

9
penningtron wrote: Intense hate for either of these bands is super fuckin' tiresome.
penningtron wrote: Intense hate for either of these bands is super fuckin' tiresome.
penningtron wrote: Intense hate for either of these bands is super fuckin' tiresome.
I might be in the minority as a dead fan, but IDGAF if every noise rock dickhead hates them, it's almost an asset.
Regardless of the actual music, The Dead has some of the best lyrics ever written about death.
gonzochicago wrote: Doubling down on life, I guess you could say.

Re: The Doors vs The Dead

10
The Doors are great. Jim Morrison sounds great, and his lyrics are totally cool. I think it was pretty much the same as Kurt Cobain lyrics, some semi-cryptic laments about childhood trauma. He is no Dylan or Leonard Cohen, for sure. But rock songs just need some cool jive to totally kill, not poetry. The first record is wall to wall "bangers" as the kids like to say. And every record after that had something memorable. No waffles.

The Dead...bad for all the reasons everybody says. I don't hate them, but they genuinely suck. They're a lousy psych band, and a middling Americana/roots band. It's like they wanted to be Jefferson Airplane, but couldn't hack it, so they tried to be the CSNY and couldn't write a fucking decent song. Still I find them somewhat charming for dragging genuine nasty hippy patchouli BO stank all the way into the 90s. I don't think any of their peers managed to stay as committed to a full bush so late into their careers.

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