Deep Purple – In Rock. 1970. 11=11.
Deep Purple – Fireball. 1971. 10=10.
Deep Purple – Machine Head. 1972. 10=10.
Deep Purple – Who Do We Think We Are. 1973. 9=9. I bought a pile of Deep Purple CDs to replace aging vinyl that was never listened to. Even though I’ve been listening to this band for close to 30 years, what this listening session (over the course of a month) proved to me, is just how weak some of Deep Purple’s songwriting really is. Deep Purple always shined best in a live setting, and their studio efforts could be painful at times. “In Rock”, the Mk II debut album, was a nice segue from their creative psych period, best displayed on the self-titled third LP. A strong album throughout, the band displays a new energy that can come from influential new members. ‘Child in Time’ is the band’s peak in both studio performance and composition. From there, DP strike me as an ordinary hard rock band with good to great moments. Certainly ‘Smoke on the Water’ and ‘Highway Star’ are excellent songs, yet they’ve been played to death on the radio, and hard to appreciate even this many years later after saturation. By “Who Do We..” it’s very clear the Mk II group has run out of ideas and they went one album too long. Interesting, though, that the re-mastered CD includes a bonus track that is a lengthy organ, bass, drum jam… more organ jazz than rock, and gives us an insight on one direction the band could’ve taken.