Pre-Owned The Doors Box Set (CD 0075596212328) by The Doors

0075596212328. Pre-Owned: Good condition. CD. For those under 17 or for those whose knowledge or impressions of the Doors were formed by AM radio play of the band's singles, early hits compilations (especially 13), or the shorter and poppier songs from the band's albums, this four-CD set is probably not something they want to own, or a place that they should go -- not yet, anyway. The Doors Box Set was a long time in coming, promised for years by the surviving bandmembers and Elektra Records, and when it finally arrived in the fall of 1997, it left all but the most serious devotees at something of a loss. As it turned out, this box -- which could be subtitled "The Ultimate Adult Guide to the Doors" (complete with a warning sticker for content) -- was the group's gift not to the tens of millions who knew "Light My Fire" or "Touch Me," but to those more rarefied dedicated fans, the listeners who'd looked beyond the most popular hits and behind the music and the poetry, hung on the stories and the histories, and had usually worn out one or more copies of No One Here Gets Out Alive. In essence, this was the group's own musical story told the bandmembers' way, without regard to technical perfection or record label (or corporate, or middle-brow) sensibilities with regard to taste or mass appeal, a perfect sweep-away-all-the-bullsh*t audio account of who and what they were. In the process, in the sheer power of the music and the presentation here, they not only leaped far beyond the boundaries of any of the video documentaries dealing with their history (aimed, as those were, at the widest possible audience) but also reduced the Oliver Stone movie to a piece of self-indulgent fiction. Where their singles depicted them as an edgy, aggressive band that sometimes pushed the envelope of what was acceptable pop radio fare, The Doors Box Set has them crossing the line of social acceptability on virtually the first note of its opening track on disc one ("Without a Safety Net"), the raw and raucous version of "Five to One" from the notorious 1969 Miami concert where lead singer Jim Morrison was later arrested and charged with indecent exposure. From the singer's exhortations to the crowd about rebellion and sex (which tells you how on edge he must've had the Miami cops at that show from the get-go), the disc moves on through tracks that cover various components of their sound and songs that reflect aspects of their musical and personal lives: "Queen of the Highway" and amazing demos of "Hyacinth House" and "My Eyes Have Seen You," the Soft Parade outtake "Who Scared You?," and an amazing live cut of "Black Train Song" that takes "Mystery Train" into wholly new psychedelic territory. The latter is almost worth the price of admission by itself, and listeners haven't even gotten to the juxtaposing of the demo and finished versions of "Moonlight Drive" or the 16-and-half-minute jam/rap (including a reference to "Mystery Train") from the Morrison Hotel sessions, entitled "Rock Is Dead," where, fueled on wine and good food, they let the tape roll on this astonishing extended musical moment. Here, Morrison's singing, two years beforehand, gets fully at the raw, bluesy sound it would acquire for the subsequent L.A. Woman album. Disc two, designated "Live in New York," contains a complete show from New York's Madison Square Garden from 1970 that has to be the best concert document left behind by the group. Despite some technical flaws, the perfor