Classic Rock: Deep Purple, a Never-Ending Legend

“Deep Purple in Rock”, also known as “In Rock”, is the band’s fourth album, released in June 1970 with the legendary cover of the group’s faces carved in rock, and is considered one of their milestones, if not “the” milestone. A hard rock manifesto with exceptional virtuosity on guitar, keyboard and drums. It is the first studio album recorded by the band composed of Ian Gillan, Ritchie Blackmore, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice. A project that redefined the sound of rock and heavy metal. But the debate, as always, is open. In “In Rock” we do not find the experimentation of Led Zeppelin or the dark world of the early Black Sabbath, but there is the search for a music that can make the hardness and fun of rock ‘n roll coexist with the magnificence of classical music. Repeat? In those years, never.

As disconcerting as an incendiary fireball, ready to shatter the certainties of many fans, perhaps too anchored to some rock stereotypes, “Fireball”, released in July 1971, for example, is another much-loved and discussed chapter that allows us to understand what Deep Purple are made of. “In Rock”, in fact, sculpts English hard rock and opens a window onto a world, but those, not only musically, are frenetic years in which everything takes on the appearance of a shock. Right after the immense success of “In Rock” and the following tour, the record companies are pushing for a worthy sequel. Frenzy, as they said: time is short, the band does not want to be chained to something consolidated and tries to go beyond what they have done up to that point.

The result, a year later, is “Fireball”, an album that shuffles the cards on the table, surprising everyone and everything, and which, although selling well, does not repeat the success of the previous project. With the following “Machine Head” we will return to squaring the circle, perhaps closer to those clichés that Ian Gillan and his friends wanted to escape in 1971. In “Machine Head” there is also “Smoke On The Water”, perhaps the most famous riff in the history of rock. The lyrics mention the fire started during Frank Zappa’s concert in Montreux, a performance immortalized in the bootleg “Swiss Cheese”. The song “Smoke On The Water” will enter the legend thanks to the live version included in the double album “Made in Japan” published at the end of 1972 that will bring the group to the Olympus of rock.

One thing, beyond the debates about the best album of their career, is certain: Deep Purple, formed in Hertford in 1968, did not like comfort for many years. Together with groups like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, they are considered among the main pioneers of the hard rock genre and among the precursors of heavy metal precisely because they wrote memorable pages of it. They are considered one of the most influential bands in the musical panorama of the Seventies, with a very varied musical substrate, ranging from blues to rock and roll, from funk to jazz and folk, from oriental music to classical music, up to R&B, to which they combined a notable technical virtuosity. The band’s sound also includes elements of progressive rock, a genre in vogue in the period in which they took their first steps. They have sold more than 100 million copies, not counting the enormous sales of bootlegs, or illegal records recorded during live performances. But Deep Purple are much more than their records and their members: “=1”, their latest album available from July 19th, represents the essence and attitude of their 70s reincarnation, perhaps more than any other recent album.

With the legendary Bob Ezrin once again on production duties, the album evokes the classic sound of the pioneering band, without relying on nostalgia. The enigmatic title “=1” symbolizes the idea that in an increasingly complex world, everything eventually simplifies into one uniform essence. Everything equals one. This is Deep Purple at their peak, with three consecutive albums under their belt and a new, rejuvenating energy pushing them forward: “Now What?!” (2013), “inFinite” (2017) and “Whoosh!” (2020) have sold over a million copies worldwide, making Deep Purple once again one of the most successful rock bands working today. The latest studio album, “Whoosh!”, reached number one on the album charts in seven countries and entered the top 10 in 12 others. They are a legend without end.