The Doors – The Soft Parade / Stripped (Limited Edition)

A limited and numbered edition, pressed on vinyl for the first time, 12000 copies worldwide.

To hear that ‘The Soft Parade /Stripped’ was being released was very exciting as it meant being able to hear the album as a ‘Doors only’ recording, rather than with pop embellishments. I grabbed it on record store day without hesitation.

As soon as I received this, naturally I was keen to check it out and then put it on and give it a listen.

The record is pressed on clear vinyl with part of the photo of The Doors from the original album on the label of Side 1 and the Doors logo and track listing on the label of Side 2. It comes housed in a clear plastic sleeve with a flap on the back and a single sheet insert with a graduating blue background with the ‘limited edition’ number on the top right corner, the title ‘the soft parade/stripped’ centred about a quarter of the way down, The Doors logo is in large letters about three quarters down, with the band members and instruments in a line across below that. To the lower left is the track listing, centred iare the musical credits and to the right the reissue credits.

Reading down the track listing came the grim realisation that only 4 of the original 9 tracks on ‘The Soft Parade’ had been reissued on this album. They are just the Robby Krieger written songs plus, on side 2, an ‘outtake’ from ‘The Soft Parade’ sessions previously released on ‘Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine’.
Side 1 comprises of the original album songs ‘stripped’: ‘Tell All The People’; ‘Touch Me’; ‘Runnin’ Blue’; ‘Wishful, Sinful’. Running time: 12 minutes 20 seconds
Side 2 comprises: ‘Touch Me’; ‘Runnin’ Blue’; ‘Wishful, Sinful’ (all stripped with guitar overdubs by Robby Krieger in 2019); ‘Who Scared You’ (stripped but no guitar overdubs). Running time: 12 minutes 0 seconds.

The stripped songs sound great and make you realise how much better the original album would have been without the ‘enhancements’, but at 12 minutes and 20 seconds playing time, it seems almost over before it started and wanting to hear more!

On side 2 the guitar overdubs on the 3 original album tracks that are also on side 1 do not, in my opinion, do much for the songs and I actually prefer the ‘stripped only’ versions, so these disappointing. Even ‘stripped’, it is clear why ‘Who Scared You’ was not included on the original album and for me, it did nothing adding it on here.

Essentially then this is a 5 song album, limited to those on the original album written by Robby Krieger, plus the outtake ‘Who Scared You’. One can only assume that sadly there were copywrite issues for the Jim Morrison written songs, so they could not be included.

This then is quite a lot of money to pay for 24 minutes and 20 seconds of playing time and 5 songs, (8 total, but 3 are on the album twice). The plastic sleeve and insert are low budget items, but the clear vinyl is 180 gr and a nice touch and sounds excellent, but overall I wouldn’t rate this album as good value or, unless you are a die-hard Doors fan, or something worth getting!

by Malcolm Worby