The Doors - The Doors (2011 SHM-SACD)

The Doors self-titled 1967 release famously contains some incorrect speed and pitch issues. While there have been "corrected" versions made, in the interests of being historically accurate, this Analogue Productions reissue was cut without speed or pitch correction.

The surround sound program on the Doors SACDs comes from the original 96K, 24-bit files mixed and mastered by Bruce Botnick for the DVD Audio Doors/Perception release. Those mixes were made from the original 8-track, 15 i.p.s. analog master tapes, with the exception of this title, The Doors, which was recorded to 4-track. For the SACDs, the mixes were then up-sampled without filters to DSD using the Weiss Saracon format converter and authored by Gus Skinas at the Super Audio Center.

One of rock music’s most famous debuts, The Doors self-titled 1967 smash is legend. And now it becomes the kick-off for a positively stunning reissue series from Analogue Productions!

The Doors was born after Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek — who’d met at UCLA’s film school — met again, unexpectedly, on the beach in Venice, CA, during the summer of 1965. Although he’d never intended to be a singer, Morrison was invited to join Manzarek’s group Rick and the Ravens on the strength of his poetry. The group later changed its moniker, taking their name from Aldous Huxley’s psychotropic monograph "The Doors of Perception." The band signed to Elektra Records following a now-legendary gig at the Whisky-a-Go-Go on the Sunset Strip.

The Doors’ arrival on the rock scene produced a string of hit singles and albums destined to become clasics. Belting out a standard like “Back Door Man” or talk-singing such originals as “The Crystal Ship,” and “I Looked at You,” one reviewer wrote that leather-clad frontman Morrison exuded “both sensuality and menace.”

The Doors reached Billboard’s No. 2 slot and delivered the No. 1 signature smash “Light My Fire” plus “Break On Through,” “The Crystal Ship,” and “The End.”