Just recently, we reached the year 1967 in our list of the most influential albums of the top 40, the year that things start to change rapidly. 

1967 was a banner year for a number of reasons. Most of us think of it as the year that gave us “The Summer of Love” and the year that psychedelic music rose to prominence. All of that is true, but those things were fleeting. Perhaps the most important thing about 1967 was rock and roll’s swift shift away from a teen-based pop formula to something significantly more mature. Hit records became less important, while albums that made statements became all the rage. Of all the things that happened in 1967 musically, this may have been the most significant change of all, because it has lasted until the present day. 

The Doors’ debut album appeared in January 1967, and it represents the exact point where that shift took place. The band straddled the fence by releasing “Light My Fire”, a heavily edited pop single that became a huge hit, and in turn drove sales of the album that contained the full length version. People who took a risk and bought the album heard something that was radical for its time, an album that had numerous tracks that outshone the hit single, including a tem minute opus that challenged everyone’s definition of what pop music could be. From this point on, rock music never looked back. Everything before 1967 was rendered obsolete, while everything that came after hearkened back to the innovations of this incredibly influential year. Perhaps more than any other act, the Doors stood at the crossroads of the times and pointed us all in a radically new direction. 

Featured tracks include; 

1) Break on Through to the Other Side

2) Soul Kitchen

3) The Crystal Ship

4) Twentieth Century Fox

5) Alabama Song

6) Light My Fire

7) Back Door Man

8) I Looked at You

9) End of the Night

10) Take It As It Comes
 

January 1967 - Billboard Charted #2