10 Bands That Invented Their Own Genre
7. The Doors
With the '60s starting to get into full swing, the entire rock scene was starting to get a lot more nasty. Whereas the start of the Summer of Love was all about peace and love, we also started to see the darker side of Flower Power start to subtly creep in as well. Though there had been some darker sides of rock and roll, The Doors took the entire genre to a place it had never been before.
Fresh off the Sunset Strip, the Doors' debut record was the first of its kind to bring a different take on blues rock to the world. While there are songs on here indebted to people like Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters, the combination of Jim Morrison's dark poetry and the band's jazzy accentuations helped usher in what we now know today as psychedelic rock. Even though the Beatles may have been saying All You Need is Love, songs like The Crystal Ship and Light My Fire is what happens when those utopian feelings are dipped in acid.
If anything, the 11-minute closing song The End could be the unofficial litmus test for psychedelia, taking what the Grateful Dead had created and reaching its dark conclusion. At a time where rock stopped playing it safe, The Doors' music was where things start to actually sound dangerous.