The Doors "Morrison Hotel" [1970]

It's likely Jim Morrison always had a screw loose, but even after he stopped dropping acid it was clear his brain was cashed anyway. Following the monumental "Doors-in-Vegas" flop of the previous year's "The Soft Parade," Morrison's band of hack-lackeys -- who'd already put up with the most asinine and infantile behavior from their front man (at least until Elvis got back into music full-time) -- retreat back to however close they could get to garage rock while simultaneously existing as worthless, coddled rock stars. And still the Englebert Humperdinck conceits are there in "Morrison Hotel," in between Morrison's drunken rants about how shitty the world outside is, and how critically deranged he'd allowed himself to become. Amazingly, his poetry only got worse -- and he hadn't exactly set a high bar in the first place -- and still no one had bothered to tell Ray Manzarek his comicly horrid circus organ had to go. So here the Doors were, stuck as fuck with nowhere to go but down. I'm sure Elektra Records was fed up with them by now, too, especially now that Jim was turning into a fat-ass before their very eyes; they probably advised him, "Hey Jim -- yeah, just go ahead and whip it out next time you're onstage. Let's see what happens." I guess they felt maybe the liability of burning down "Morrison Hotel" with the Doors still in it might have come back on them somehow. Much easier to set Jim up with a flat in Paris and a smack dealer, and let things work themselves out.