With the exception of the hard blues “Love Me Two Times” and the rock tango “Moonlight Drive,” Strange Days didn’t have the power of The Doors; it sounded instead like twilit, ominous carnival music. “People Are Strange,” “Strange Days,” and “I Can’t See Your Face in My Mind... 

 Although the abbreviated, 45 version hit harder, “Light My Fire” neatly introduced the Doors’ effect: vocals alternately commanding and stoned, swirling organ and the message that sex could mean deliverance. “Break on Through,” however, is the debut album’s better song and the essenti... 

 Waiting for the Sun featured “Hello, I Love You,” a jagged Kinks ripoff in which Morrison comes on like a rapist; “Five to One” was revolutionary sloganeering. The rest of the record was considerably subtler: Krieger’s flamenco guitar on “Spanish Caravan” is stirring, “Summer’s ... 

 The Door’s shakiest album, The Soft Parade, was cluttered with horns and strings. While not at all music for the band’s hard-rock followers, Krieger’s “Touch Me” and “Tell All the People” are intriguing: They’re pop songs, but sifted through the Doors’ sensibilities, they take o... 

 A return to form, Morrison Hotel was their most cohesive record. Aside from the throwaway grunter “Maggie McGill,” every song was masterful–and the band swings tougher and easier than they ever had before. Morrison’s voice is almost shot, but its strain lends grit to the rockers (“Roadh... 

 “Riders on the Storm,” “Love Her Madly,” “L’America,” and the title track were the standouts of the final album, L.A. Woman. Inventive playing characterizes every song, but so does a heavy air of psychic exhaustion. Morrison’s voice is a ghost of its former glory–doom, heartbrea... 

 There are a number of anomalous Doors releases, including An American Prayer, which belongs in the books-on-tape category. It features Morrison reading his poetry over atmospherics from the band; it’s intriguing but suitable mainly for Morrison fanatics.  

 Fanatics will want to find the four-CD box set that came out in 1997; almost every cut had been previously unreleased. The three surviving band members fill one CD with their personal favorites–we can only imagine which songs Jim would have selected. Other, redudant boxes have flooded the marke... 

 Bright Midnight is the band’s odds-and-sods release, material that was left off the box set. The sound quality is fantastic: One can hear the powerhouse live show that was the Doors at their prime.  

 Also noteworthy is Live in Hollywood, which culls 16 songs from two shows at the Aquarius Theatre in July 1969, more evidence that Morrison was a remarkable performer.  

 But the best compilation is 2003’s Legacy, a two-CD set that expands the basic greatest-hits format. It features 34 of the Doors’ best album tracks in chronological order. Hard-core fans will bemoan the omission of “Love Street,” but the span of this collection is wide enough to capture t... 

 In the 2000s, the band released loads of other live shows, both on their own Bright Midnight label and on Rhino records. One of the best is Live at the Matrix, which catches the pre-fame Doors in an oft-bootlegged club run from 1967.