L.A. Woman is the sixth studio album by the American rock band the Doors, released on April 19, 1971, by Elektra Records.

Critics including Richie Unterberger and David Quantick have called L.A. Woman one of the Doors' best albums, citing Morrison's vocal performance and the band's stripped-down return to their blues-rock roots.

[6] The new songs were a departure from the heavily orchestrated pieces on the earlier album The Soft Parade, which burdened the group with long, drawn-out recording sessions.

[10] The simplified and straightforward style, progressing from Morrison Hotel, was well-received, noted by Jazz & Pop magazine as "a return to the tight fury of early Doors' music".

"[14] Rothchild has denied a popular rumor that claimed he directed the remark toward "Riders on the Storm", explaining that he thought that song and "L.A. Woman" were "excellent in rehearsal".

[16][17] As Bruce Botnick revealed in the book Love Becomes a Funeral Pyre, another issue that led to Rothchild's leaving was the emotional devastation he felt at the death of Janis Joplin, having worked with her on Pearl.

[19] The group and Botnick organized a makeshift recording studio at their private rehearsal space, the Doors' Workshop, a two-story building at 8512 Santa Monica Boulevard.

[21] A mixing console previously owned by Elektra was installed upstairs in the Workshop, while studio monitors, microphones, and keyboards were set up downstairs.

To compensate for the lack of an isolated vocal booth, Morrison recorded in the bathroom doorway, singing into the same microphone used on the Doors' final tour.

[24] For recording, Elvis Presley's bassist Jerry Scheff and rhythm guitarist Marc Benno were brought in to provide additional backing.

[31] Lyrically, the album deals with contemporary topics such as love, life in Los Angeles, and complex aspects of the human experience.

[32] The album, as a whole, demonstrated Morrison's songwriting abilities, combined with his poetic phrasing and enthusiasm for Los Angeles but still a desire to leave the city with his partner, Pamela Courson.

[36] Taken from one of Morrison's journals written in 1968, Holzman overruled the group's decision in favor of "Love Her Madly" and the non-album B-side "(You Need Meat) Don't Go No Further".

A conventional blues song reminiscent of Morrison's potential imprisonment from earlier Doors performances, the lyrics showed depression, liberation, and sexuality.

Thought of as Morrison's final goodbye to Los Angeles, it communicated his mixed feelings of passion and disdain for "the city of night".

[42] In addition to "The Changeling", the Doors chose to incorporate three other compositions written before 1971: "L' America", "Crawling King Snake", and "The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)".

[25][37] The Doors' arrangement of the traditional "Crawling King Snake" dates back to their early tours, and was sometimes coupled with Morrison's poem "Celebration of the Lizard".

[44] "The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)" is a reworking of Morrison's sample of poetry first appearing on the group's souvenir books in 1968.

[49][50] The band opened the first concert with an extended "Love Her Madly", but struggled on older material as they had not played live since the Isle of Wight FestivaI that August.

[2][3] The first cover pressing had a burgundy-colored, curved-corner cardboard cutout sleeve, framing a clear embossed cellophane insert, glued in from behind.

According to Jac Holzman, chief executive officer of Elektra Records: "I wasn't sure there would be another album ever, so I had Bill Harvey create a collector's cover.

"[77] Melody Maker wrote a not-so-favorable review, commending some cuts, especially the "effective electric piano" of "Riders on the Storm", but deemed the rest of the album as just "staleness", and that it's "all so obvious that originality has left them".

[65] In his 1994 book The Complete Guide to the Music of The Doors, Peter K. Hogan describes the album as an expansion on the style from Morrison Hotel, but in a more coherent form.

"[66] David Quantick from BBC Music attributed the record's success to "a stripped-down yet full sound, a developed mysticism tied tightly to the band's brand of rock, and confidence born of having been a functioning unit for several years".

[5] Richie Unterberger, writing for AllMusic, described L.A. Woman as "uneven", but noted that the album contains compositions that "rate among their finest and most disturbing work".

This edition of L.A. Woman includes two bonus tracks ("Orange County Suite" and "(You Need Meat) Don't Go No Further") and was made available with or without an accompanying DVD that features the 5.1 surround sound version of the album along with Doors' rehearsal footage.

[93] Analogue Productions also reissued the album on hybrid SACD (2013) and double 45 RPM vinyl (2012), both editions were mastered by Doug Sax and Sangwook Nam at The Mastering Lab; the CD layer of the Super Audio CD contains the original stereo mix while the SACD layer contains Botnick's 2006 5.1 surround mix.

It was remastered by Botnick using the Plangent Process and includes the original stereo mix and two bonus discs of unreleased studio outtakes.

[96] Rhino released on April 23, 2022 (as a RSD exclusive) the studio outtakes from the 50th Anniversary three-CD/one-LP set as a special edition quadruple vinyl entitled L.A. Woman Sessions.

[99] Details are taken from the 2007 Rhino Records CD remaster liner notes with producer Bruce Botnick's accompanying essay, and may differ from other sources.