Waiting for the Sun by The Doors

Waiting for the Sun, the Doors' third album, came out on Elektra in July 1968, and it's the sound of a band that had burned through its songbook. The first two records drew on a big stockpile of older songs; this time Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore had to improvise their way to new material, a struggle Densmore later diagnosed as a kind of third-album affliction. Paul Rothchild produced, mostly at TTG Studios in Los Angeles, between late 1967 and May 1968, with Morrison's drinking getting worse as the sessions dragged on.

Critics were split at the time, but the thing hangs together in its own odd way: mellower, looser, wandering off into other styles. "Hello, I Love You" became their second US number-one single, "Five to One" growls with menace, and the album gave the Doors their only number-one LP, four weeks at the top, plus their first real hit in Britain.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.