Not a big Marillion guy but I do have Straws. I highly prefer Script though. By a mile.
Oh, man, well, just... no.
Well, let's go to the oldest album in the list, ever.
#11Deep PurpleDeep PurpleGenre: classic / progressive / hard rock 1969 I’ll be honest, I have no idea what kind of rock this record represents, so I just put those different ones in the “genre” field. I’m open to suggestions though!
If you remember that fancy diagram I’ve posted in the opening post, there was that small section for albums from 60s; it was actually 2% or exactly one record. In this regard, Deep Purple is certainly a unique work of art, and not only in this regard. Don’t get me wrong, I love the band and their work, but they tend to have a few tremendous songs on each album, while the rest of CD is filled with mediocre songs. Let’s see, just off the top of my head: Burn has the title track and Mistreated; In Rock has Child in Time and, uhm, what else, Speed King as an opener (I hadn’t listened to that album for years! Wow. I don’t remember any other songs from it. I remember this album was great, that’s all. I need to rectify that as soon as possible); Machine Head is more consistent with all the hits like Pictures of Home, Lazy, Highway Star and come-on-who-doesn’t-know-that-song Smoke on the Water, but still doesn’t quite match the superb quality of their self-titled record.
And now it’s time for obligatory introduction. Deep Purple is an English rock band founded in 1968. The self-titled album is their third studio output, so as you can see, the band was quite prolific in those days, and they kept releasing their albums every year until the band’s split happened in 1976. They’ve had a lot of lineup changes over the years. There may be a lot of arguing which musicians were essential to the band and defined their sound and such stuff, and I don’t want to touch that subject; I’ll just say Deep Purple had two musicians I’m hugely fond of, if I was making my Top 10 Favourite Musicians Ever list, they definitely would’ve been there, maybe even in Top 5. I’m talking about Deep Purple keyboardist and Hammond organ player (you just can’t omit the mighty Hammond when you’re talking about him)
Jon Lord, and their guitarist
Ritchie Blackmore. I’m not saying any other members weren’t important, I will never say that, but as it happens, they’re just those two guys I’m paying most of my attention when I spin any Deep Purple record. So let’s keep talking about their lineup for the self-titled album. Of course there is
Ian Paice, the seemingly irreplaceable DP drummer; there is also Lord’s friend
Nick Simpler on bass, and finally there is
Rod Evans on vocals. Obviously Ian Gillan is the most known Deep Purple singer, next one would probably be David Coverdale in 73-75, then JLT, and some people tend to have this mildly surprised look when you tell them there is also Rod Evans, who performed on the first three DP records. I’ve got to say, he did a splendid job here on this album.
I wrote a lot in the intro and about the lineup, huh. Alright, let’s talk about the album itself now. Deep Purple clocks at about forty-five minutes; there are eight tracks, which is about the usual amount for the band, most tracks are around five minutes in length except a short instrumental
Fault Line,
The Painter (though if you combine those two you’ll get slightly more than five minutes), and the possibly longest song in Deep Purple catalogue, classical-Lord-influenced piece called
April. The tracks has a diverse attitude to them;
Chasing Shadows lets Ian Paice shine, featuring a distinctively pronounced drumming rhythms,
Blind is somewhat calmer until the distorted solo by Blackmore comes up,
Bird Has Flown has a bit wacky, eccentric feel to it, and so on, you get it. There is also one cover on the record, called
Lalena, which is actually a more than decent and successful attempt; it’s a peaceful harbor among the whole bracing, invigorative atmosphere. And I won’t even start talking about April, which must be the best Deep Purple song ever written, you just have to experience it yourself. If you followed this far into the list and still interested, do me a favour and give it a try. It’s a shame this song weren’t played live as far as I know when the guys had the chances, and now it’s too late already. Sigh.
Both Lord and Blackmore decided to walk their own roads after Deep Purple. First, in 1976 Ritchie was already recording stuff with his band Rainbow, Jon went on with his solo career along with Whitesnake; then they’ve reunited in 1984 in Deep Purple again, putting out a successful Perfect Strangers. After a few years in the band, Blackmore left again to perform medieval and folk music with Blackmore’s Night, Jon was pursuing his solo career more and more. The guys had a lot in common, musically, and a lot of differences too, but in the end, I’m forever grateful to both of them, and of course to the rest musicians as well who were at Deep Purple until the first split, for making such a timeless art of music.
Favourite tracks:
Blind,
Lalena,
Bird Has Flown,
AprilAnd now we’re done with 80% of this list, but of course the best is yet to come. That’s it for today updates though, top ten starting tomorrow, where we shall be getting into the undisputable classics territory, along with a few modern masterpieces, and of course there is an odd, unexpected album somewhere in there too which I never saw making an appearance in any list.