Deep Purple: Machine Head
1972
Warner Bros Records
Format I Own it on: Vinyl
Track Listing: 1. Highway Star 2. Maybe I'm a Leo 3. Pictures of Home 4. Never Before 5. Smoke on the Water 6. Lazy 7. Space Truckin'
I think I need to pick up some new strings...Might as well go to Guitar Center...
(Hop into my car...)
Might as well listen to some radio...
♫ "SMOOO-O-O-O-OKE ON THE WAAAATER..." ♫
Ugh...Tired of this song...
(switches station to 92.1 FM)...
♫ "FIRE IN THE SKIE-IE..." ♫
No!
(switches station to 104.2 FM)
♫"HUMO-O-O-O EN EL AGUAAA...FUEGO EN EL CIELO... ♫" (Tejano version of "Smoke on the Water"...)
(pulls into Guitar Center parking lot...Walks Inside...)
This is how I feel about "Smoke on the Water." I've heard it 10,000,000 times and at this point I am completely incapable of enjoying it...If I never hear it again it'll be too soon...I'm beyond sick of it...I'm "Stairway to Heaven" sick of it...Whenever I hear it (always against my will) my mind and soul melts away, my jaw goes slack, and an all-encompassing boredom sinks in...But oddly enough I can remember back when it wasn't that way...
I believe I originally got this album from my Brother Troy...He was getting rid of his vinyl, which was a pretty common practice back in the day...CD's were still new and shiny and people were purging their homes of their dusty old records, which was great for me! I loved records! The covers were so much bigger, the sound seemed to have more dimension, it was fun to watch them spin around, and best of all everybody was getting rid of them, so records were ridiculously cheap (if not free)! Anyway, I scored a huge collection...
I remember getting some Twisted Sister records...
...various albums by the Nuge...
Black Sabbath...
Emerson, Lake and Powell?...
...and Deep Purple's "Machine Head"...
I was probably age 12 or so, and boy did I love this album...I loved everything about it, from the blurry cover photo...
...to the huge poster with the sweet purple trim that functioned as the lyric sheet (I remember every panel of this eventually tore away and I ended up with about three or four standard sized sheets of paper)...
...to that photo-filled inside gatefold...In particular I was intrigued how every photo of Ian Paice was taken about an inch from his face and the picture of Claude Nobs (third from the right on the top row) that looked like 70's Dan Aykroyd...I remember being so fascinated by Claude's photo...This was the late 80's/early 90's and I couldn't process someone actually looking like that...He was such a distinctly 70's-looking person...I couldn't imagine what he would look like in real life....
...and I especially loved "Smoke on the Water"...It sounded like the riff was discovered from some ancient tablet or something...It had such power...It was the perfect riff...So I played it, and played it, and played it, until one day I had heard it enough and moved onto other things...
But shortly after that, classic rock playlists started to settle into place and one of the songs that every station on Planet Earth (or maybe Clear Channel had something to do with it...) played "Smoke on the Water," "Iron Man," "Stairway to Heaven" and "You Shook Me All Night Long" every ten minutes for all eternity... Then you'd always have the one friend or family member who would come over with their guitar and butcher the "Smoke on the Water" riff for hours on end ...Then Guitar Centers popped up on every corner, and everybody's 'one friend or family member who butchered the "Smoke on the Water" riff for hours on end' all convened in one place and bungled their way through the riff...And my resentment for the song just grew and grew....
Now I guess I can kind of see it as the modern version of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" or "Mary Had a Little Lamb." The simple little ditty for beginners to learn and drive everybody nuts with...And then those people get all nostalgic and crank it up on the radio, telling their spouse, "See, Honey? This is the song that started it all for me..." So I guess I can make peace with it in that light...On the other hand, I'm never in the mood to hear "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" or "Mary Had a Little Lamb" either...
Bet let's pretend for a moment that the record flopped. Nobody noticed it and "Smoke on the Water," "Highway Star" and "Space Truckin'" were never played on the radio (however hard that is to imagine)...I think one would still deduce that this was a special Deep Purple record. I think you would still get the impression that everything fell into place for them...Although I've heard it a hundred times too many, I still have to acknowledge that "Highway Star" is the pinnacle of the hard charging Deep Purple opening track...Compare it to "Speed King" or "Fireball" and you realize what they've achieved...As it chugs along you can clearly see the lines on the highway and marvel when they finally become a blur somewhere during the dual keyboard/guitar solo section...
(Remember when you could release a 9 minute single and radio was alright with it? In a way I'm glad that's over...Can you imagine a 9 minute Justin Beiber single? (shudders)).
Of the three overplayed songs on the radio, I think "Space Truckin"holds up the best for me...First off I love that spiraling riff...And additionally, I think it's the only Deep Purple radio track to convey how weird Ian Gillan's lyrics are...They're usually either misogynistic "WOMAN!!" lyrics or they're the most oddball shit ever, but you usually only pick that up from checking out the full albums...
As for the tracks that rarely (if ever) make it to radio, they're all just as good..."Lazy" has a stomping riff that served as the template for a billion Clutch songs..."Pictures of Home" has the same soaring. melodic power that heavy metal bands would start picking up on at the tail end of the late 70's and early 80's..."Never Before" has always been my favorite track on the album. It's a great catchy hard-rock/pop single that would sound great on the radio...."Lazy" always gets a bad rap for being the worst song on the album, but I don't think it's that bad...It certainly slows things down with its extended atmospheric keyboards and epic length, but I've always enjoyed revisiting its bluesy haziness...
I highly recommend taking the approach I did...Stop listening to the album for a good 10 years, avoid radio and Guitar Centers the best you can, and then give "Machine Head" another spin...I think it deserves its place as one of the sacred texts of the Hard Rock/Heavy Metal era...
Here's "Never Before" by Deep Purple...Enjoy...
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