When you think of the Doors, it’s all here, fully formed in their debut. The mix of blues, jazz, rock, and psychedelia; the sinewy grooves with Morrison’s immortal howls and charisma. The Doors has one of the most specific sounds of any of their other work: This entire thing sounds inspired by and written in a smoky, middle-of-the-night world. Released in 1967, it almost positioned them to always have been a band that was really about the end of one thing and the beginning of another. There’s something harder, a little more dangerous, about the Doors’ character than the ’60s greats who had started earlier in the decade. They’re a band that seems to capture the narrative of the ’60s spinning out of control and collapsing into the decadence of the ’70s. And they synthesized all of that perfectly, here, right in the beginning. It’s one of those all-time great debut albums.”Break On Through,” “Light My Fire,” “Soul Kitchen,” and “The End” are all still some of the most iconic songs associated with the band. And that’s before you get to “The Crystal Ship,” which boasts one of Morrison’s best vocal performances, or to the infectious ’60s pop moments like “Twentieth Century Fox” and “I Looked At You.” Then you get to “Take It As It Comes,” a rapid burst of just over two minutes that boasts an unshakeable chorus that ranks it amongst the band’s best deep cuts. Bands worked at such a quick pace back then that, really, who knows how much thought the Doors were able to put into this versus the five albums they would churn out by early 1971. But maybe, on some level, they realized the impossible highs they’d already reached on their debut. Before the reboot of Morrison Hotel, the Doors were trying variations on the same themes and tricks — discovering new corners of their sound, sure, but also seemingly in search for the perfect balance of The Doors, trying to recreate this and never quite getting there in the same way again. Whatever fluctuations the Doors’ legacy goes through as a band, there’s no getting around it: this is one of the classic, iconic records of the ’60s, and it holds that status for a reason.