Deep Purple: Who Do We Think We Are?
1973
Warner Bros Records
Format I Own it on: Vinyl
Track Listing: 1. Woman from Tokayo 2.Mary Long 3.Super Trouper 4. Smooth Dancer 5. Rat Bat Blue 6. Place in Line 7. Our Lady
This is often remembered as being the disappointing follow-up to "Machine Head," which I can understand how someone could walk away with that impression...It rarely ever hits that previous album's many high-points, but I find this album's "I don't give a damn-ness" much more interesting...
Album opener "Woman From Tokayo" (their spelling,. not mine...Although, I guess it's exactly how Ian Gillan sings it...) is probably a good indication of what they should have done. A perfectly crunchy pop-rock single that sounds like "Machine Head's" most accessible moments sweetened for extra radio sheen...Despite it being a classic rock radio staple, I actually hadn't heard this song in a long time...Anyway, here it is, if you haven't heard it lately....
So far, so good, right? But things turn weird on track two, "Mary Long"...A fairly standard DP rocker, but check out these lyrics:
"Mary Long is a hypocrite
She does all the things that she tells us not to do
Selling filth from a corner shop
And knitting patterns to the high street queue
She paints roses, even makes them smell good
And then she draws titties on the khazy wall
Drowns kittens just to get a thrill
And writes sermons in the Sunday Chronicle
How did you lose your virginity, Mary Long ?
When will you lose your stupidity, Mary Long ?"
Drawing
titties?! Drowning kittens?! What the hell? Who could this Mary Long
possibly be? Is she me? I draw titties sometimes, but on the other hand, I love kittens, so...
Turns out it's not any specific person, but a couple of
people combined...
Mary
Whitehouse, whom I actually suspected it might be about when I first
heard it...I only know who that is through the extra features on old Doctor Who
DVD's...She was some old prude who was offended by everything...I think she might have also been one of the Golden Girls, but I'm not sure...
..and Lord Longford, whom I have never heard of...Apparently he was some sort of anti-porn crusader who tried to free convicted murderers in his free time...So yea, these guys probably deserve the verbal abuse...
And then after "Mary Long" we get "Super Trouper" which sounds like a psychedelic boogie getting sucked into a vacuum cleaner..."Smooth Dancer" finishes off side one with more boogie, this time with rollicking piano, a funkier feel and more bizarre lyrics, this time about black suede and false pregnancies...Who knows...This track flew right by on first listen, but I like it more every time I play it....
Side two begins with the album's runner-up for best track, "Rat Bat Blue." It's a cool heavy blues, similar to something Led Zeppelin would have done around the same time, but the song really hits its stride during the keyboard solo which is truly head-spinning and the nonsense lyrics work in a "scat-singing" way for Gillan... "Place in Line" is this album's "Lazy." The overlong blues that is usually pointed out as the weak-link, but I really like this one...Gillan's vocals are interesting and inventive...He starts out sounding like some 80 year old blues guy, mumbling in a low register, then he takes a kind of Bob Dylanesque approach for the chorus, and then onto his usual power-wailing...The band's approach varies too...Beginning as slow-blues before subtly morphing into hard rock...The extended solos by Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore might test the attention-span of some folks, but it wasn't nothing I couldn't handle...
Hey! I sat through the 16 minute drum solos on Cream's "Wheels of Fire Live!" Three minutes of guitar and organ solos are a walk in the park at this point....
The album ends with "Our Lady" which is psychedelicized gospel rock?! You could almost picture Joe Cocker or somebody singing this...Not my favorite track or anything, but it's surprising that they can pull all this stuff off at this point...I remember a few days ago, listening to "Fireball" where every detour seemed to end in Nowheres-ville, but all of this works...
Ultimately, I don't know how this ended up with the reputation it has...Some of it might be a bit adventurous for your average Deep Purple fan, and it's probably too macho and Camaro-y for fans of "out-there" music...But it hits just the right balance for me, and at this moment it probably follows "In Rock" as my personal favorite album by the band right now...It's definitely one of those albums you'll have to give a couple of spins before it sinks in, though...
Deep Purple: Burn
1974
Warner Bros. Records
Format I own it on: Vinyl
Track Listing: 1. Burn 2. Might Just Take Your Life 3. Lay Down, Stay Down 4. Sail Away 5. You Fool No One 6. What's Goin' On Here 7. Mistreated 8. A' 200
WHITESNAKE ALERT!! This album is the start of Mark III Deep Purple, where Glenn Hughes replaces Roger Glover on bass and David Coverdale replaces Ian Gillan on vocals...Come to think of it 3/5ths of this line-up would end up in the Whitesnake...
But don't worry! There's no Tawny Kitaen or Jaguars here (which may or may not be a good thing based on your tolerance for Aqua-Net)...
David Coverdale sounds just fine, falling somewhere between Robert Plant and a gust of wind...Glenn Hughes also acts as a co-vocalist, with a much more plain, white-bluesman style that's an occasional respite from David's vocals, although I don't think the album would have suffered in any way from just having David do them all...Anyway, any reservations you may have get washed away as soon as the title-track comes on...This band has always had a knack for opening tracks....The fastest, meanest, most-rocking song on any Deep Purple album is invariably the first one, and this one holds its own against "Speed King" and "Highway Star"....Jon and Ritchie's classically-influenced solos on this song are the greatest moments in the band's discography, in my opinion, and my God, that drummer is a muzzafuzza...Great song....
I don't think anything else on the album comes close to matching the title track, however it's all fine slightly-funky, heavy-blues rock...Maybe a bit more bluesy/soulful and a little less heavy than Mark II. Jon Lord's use of the Moog sets it apart from the previous albums also...Listen to all those boinging sounds on the instrumental "A' 200"...And then those 70's sci-fi tones that come in over that marching beat....I can see how people could hate this song and the cheesy sounds, but damn, I love it...
I have to be really honest here...The track that usually gets singled out as the album's finest moment, "Mistreated," doesn't do anything for me...It's not bad or anything, but it's fairly dull...I can see how someone who's more attuned to slow, smouldering blues jams might get something out of this, but I usually find myself nodding off...Maybe if they cut it down to three minutes it might hold my interest more...I will say it comes off as something that would kill at a live show, though...I can imagine the whole house coming down when Ritchie does the faster, heavier solo at the song's climax...But I'm not at a bad-ass stadium show, I'm sitting on the floor at home listening to a record, so Zzzzzzz....
But that's a minor hiccup...Like I said the rest of the album is good, 70's fun...Aside from a few choice moments, this line-up didn't have the appeal of the Mark II albums (although, I probably like it more than "Fireball"), but it's a good listen when you feel like digging a little deeper into the depths of 70's hard rock...If you have any affection for the era, I can't imagine not digging this a little....
Here's "Burn" by Deep Purple...Enjoy...
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