MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: THE DOORS - WAITING FOR THE SUN 50th ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION

Waiting For The Sun hasn't had the best reputation over these 50 years, but a lot of that has to do with the back story as much as what got put on the record. Reacting badly to his fame and fan reaction to his image, Jim Morrison showed up drunk to the sessions, and some of the energy of the group's first two albums was missing. Also, they'd exhausted their stage repertoire of proven material, and had to stretch for more. Famously, Morrison was unable to come up with a usable version of his new epic, The Celebration Of The Lizard, supposed to be a full album side, which instead got truncated to the unmemorable smaller cut Not To Touch The Earth. To make up for the shortfalls, the band returned to some old 1965 demos for cuts to record.

Lucky. That's where they found and reworked the cut Hello, I Love You, a huge hit that helped propel the album to the top of the charts. And there were other major songs, especially The Unknown Soldier and Five To One, the latter including the memorable line "No One Here Gets Out Alive." And it's not like the rest of the album was junk, as cuts such as Love Street and Spanish Caravan enjoyable. It's just that they weren't The End.

For this edition, original engineer Bruce Botnick has overseen a brand new stereo remaster of the album, and provided detailed notes on the improved sound. There's also a new 180-gram pressing for you vinyl hounds. The bonus audio has been changed from the 40th anniversary edition, which included the several working and discarded versions of The Celebration Of The Lizard, plus an instrumental, examples of the failed work. This time, Botnick has found an old tape of rough mixes they did at the time, which are much more enjoyable, showing a few elements that were long buried, and a little more roughness to the tracks. Nine of the final eleven cuts are included. Also, a tape has surfaced of part of a show in Copenhagen in August of 1968. The fidelity is pretty rough, it's only mono, but historically it's pretty interesting, with versions of the new cuts Hello, I Love You, Five To One and The Unknown Soldier being unveiled, as well as the favourite blues Back Door Man, and a recitation of the poem (not the song) The Wasp (Texas Radio and the Big Beat). All in all, this set goes a long way to improving the image of Waiting For The Sun.