What’s strange – appropriately, considering the song – about the Doors is the obsessive quality that fans of the band have, the idea that there’s something special and unique about the band. They’re talking about Jim Morrison, of course, because as “People Are Strange” demonstrates, the music that accompanied him is close to the kinds of things that bands like the Loving Spoonful, the Zombies and even the Monkees were putting out at the same time.
I don’t mean that as an insult; I love that kind of music, and actually find more interest in it than in Morrison’s louche vocals. But it’s funny that Doors devotees are the kinds of people who’d make a case for the band being different from their contemporaries when they’re so amazingly similar. Listen to the plinky-plonk piano here, or the guitar solo at 0:58 that could’ve easily come from John Sebastian or someone similar; there’s a genericism in American rock and pop from this time, a similarity in form and sound, and the Doors don’t come anywhere close to escaping that in this song.
Of course, the Doors’ version is still superior to the Echo and the Bunnymen version that came from the soundtrack to The Lost Boys, which takes the original and somehow makes it sound like the Stray Cats have had their way with it, even with the hilarious instrumental break that tries to insert the psych break that the Doors were so beloved for:
This may have been the version of the song I first heard at age 12, but still. Could do better, Mr. Echo.