A lot of competition in this category.. I’d love to say Bob Dylan, because receiving the Noble Prize for Literature sets him up for some bashing, but I don’t consider him a band. He has a band, which is not the same thing. Also, when dogs run free. Blink Day and Green 182 deserve mention, as does Guns and Roses. All bands that showed up late to their genre’s party and rode the coat tails of much better bands. Yet, no band gets called genius with such reckless abandon for the definition of that word like The Doors.

Let me say The Doors were a good band. I’ll even acquiesce they had moments of greatness. They were part of a movement of greatness in the 60s. But if you take a moment and listen now, today, really listen, the music is pretty basic. And let’s be honest if Jim Morrison looked like Iggy Pop no one would wear him on a t-shirt. Side note: I wanna be your dog came out in 1969 and still sounds dangerous today. Compared to Janis Joplin, who did look like Iggy Pop, Morrison’s pipes were sub-par. Which leaves us with the decade long claim he was a great poet.

Well. I intended to place some of his poetry in this article as proof that he was no genius, that he was a 20-something, UCLA kid with a Jesus complex, but the wind has been taken out of my proverbial sails. I asked my step-kids, 14 and 16, who they thought the most overrated band of all time was—The Rolling Stones. So after I explained why Keith alone kept them from that fate, I asked what the thought of The Doors.

“Who?” They replied.

“Not The Who,” I quipped. “The Doors. Jim Morrison.”

“Never heard of them,” the 14-year-old replied.

“I’ve heard the name Jim Morrison,” the 16=year-old offered, “but I don’t really know who he is.”

So, there you have it. Fame is indeed fleeting. When the music is over . . . turn out the lights.”