Deep Purple

Deep Purple [ˌdiːpˈpɜːpl̩] is an English rock band formed in April 1968. Their style, characterised by the sound of the Hammond organ, distinctive guitar riffs, improvisation, driving rhythm work and distinctive vocals, makes them one of the earliest and most influential exponents of hard rock and burgeoning heavy metal. In 1975, the Guinness Book of World Records listed Deep Purple as the "loudest pop group in the world" (Loudest Pop Group) thanks to their 10,000-watt Marshall PA system, which reached up to 117 dB. Deep Purple is one of the world's most commercially successful rock bands, having sold over 130 million albums - some estimates put the figure at 150 million.

In the course of the band's history, which was marked by numerous line-up changes, there were also musical realignments. In the band's early work, hard rock, psychedelic rock, progressive rock and blues rock (Hush) stand alongside attempts at rapprochement between rock music and classical music (Concerto for Group and Orchestra, April). However, it was mainly the classic Mark II line-up of the 1970s that left a style-defining influence, whose work includes style-defining albums such as Deep Purple in Rock, Machine Head and Made in Japan and concise hard rock songs with catchy riffs such as Black Night, Smoke on the Water and Highway Star, but is also characterised by a particular joy in improvisation. This is expressed on the one hand in titles of unusually long playing time such as Child in Time, and on the other hand in the live performances of the songs, such as Space Truckin', which were considerably extended in length compared to the studio versions. Deep Purple are considered to be the forerunners of the genre of speed metal through songs like Fireball and the founders of neo-classical metal through the influences of guitarist Ritchie Blackmore on songs like Burn. Their musical range includes ballads like Soldier of Fortune along with other influences from jazz, funk and soul. From the beginning, the band was one of the most popular and touring live acts in rock history.

Deep Purple broke up in 1976 after numerous quarrels. The members formed successor bands such as Rainbow, Whitesnake and Gillan, in which their music found a musical heritage. The line-ups since the 1984 reunion are musically oriented towards this most successful phase of the band, although since the early 1990s increasingly with the addition of poppy and jazzy elements.

In 2016, Deep Purple was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the first three band lineups - Mark I, Mark II as well as Mark III.

Texts

Whereas Rod Evans' lyrics are wholly committed to the psychedelic theme of evoking past times ("Past castles white and fair past dreaming chessmen on their boards with a fool's mate as a snare, ..." from Listen, Learn, Read on), the "depiction of nature and color as a romantic expression of one's soul life" (April, Blind), and a "late adolescent melancholy," Gillan's lyrics deal with a broader range of topics. He commented on the range of content as follows:

"I write about everything really, [...] from mundane things to politics, from religion to revolution, from train journeys to diving adventures, from something I've seen on TV to people I meet on the street. About my impressions, my feelings."

In hard rock music typical themes of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll and machismo are also not missing in Deep Purple and appear in many songs, for example in Strange Kind of Woman, Highway Star or Hard Lovin' Man, or also in Lay Down, Stay Down, I Need Love or High Ball Shooter around the theme of sex:

"Let me know you feel it. You know I really need it. Keep on pushin' for more. Lay down, stay down" (from Lay Down, Stay Down)

In addition, the band also addresses critical topics: Tracks like Strange Ways and the anti-war song Under the Gun express political and social criticism:

"Stupid bastards and religious freaks. So safe in their castle keeps. They turn away as a mother weeps. Under the gun."

No No No calls for a fight against the abuse of power and the destruction of the earth, and Mary Long focuses on the British moralist Mary Whitehouse, while Pictures of Innocence criticizes political correctness and the delusion of standardization.

An important theme here is self-reflection and the admission of one's own inadequacies, as in the second movement of the Concerto for Group and Orchestra, in the title Pictures of Home or on Perfect Strangers:

"What shall I do, when they stand smiling at me. Look at the floor, and be oh so cool, Oh so cool." (from Concerto for Group and Orchestra) "Here in this prison of my own making. Year after day I have grown. Into a hero, but there's no worship. Where have they hidden my throne?" (from Pictures of Home)

This is often combined with a critical reflection of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle and business, as in Super Trouper, No One Came or Wasted Sunsets:

"I felt the truth, I felt the pain in every song. [...] I'm just a shadow in a rock and roll sky." (from Super Trouper) "I believe that I must tell the truth, and say things as they really are. But if I told the truth and nothing but the truth. Could I ever be a star? Nobody knows who's real and who's fakin'. Everyone's shouting out loud It's only the glitter and shine that gets thru." (from No One Came)

In many lyrics Gillan apparently uses a free-associative approach, which leads to lines rich in imagery, sometimes seemingly devoid of meaning. An example of this is the title Gypsy's Kiss, in which speech sound and rhyme seem to be primary:

"John San, what you can. La la Janette dance in sand. What's the mystery, my son? Gypsy Dan, Caravan. Won Tun Wan with your Chinese fan. It's part of history my son." (from Gypsy's Kiss)

"Gotta black breast Chinese eyes. Got an English brain that's gonna make me wise. Got a long story that I wanna tell." (from Bloodsucker)

Coverdale-era lyrics, as in Burn or "Stormbringer" (the title of a novel by fantasy author Michael Moorcock), revolve around the fantasy-influenced themes later popular in metal:

"Thunder and lightning. Heading your way. Ride the rainbow. Crack the sky. Stormbringer coming. Time to die" (from Stormbringer), slightly varied repetition and the stylistic figures of anaphora and epiphora are used extensively and to great effect, as in the title Bloodsucker.

Significance for rock music

Deep Purple had a decisive influence on the music and lifestyle of the early 1970s. Thus wrote the magazine konkret in 1980:

"The Beatles, Stones, Cream, Deep Purple, Roxy Music infiltrated German living rooms as a matter of course."

and the music magazine Eclipsed wrote in reference to the introduction of the title Speed King:

"Blackmore shattered the established conventions of the Beat era in just fifty seconds, making pop music's sixties history."

Along with Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, the band is one of the first and most important bands of hard rock and is considered to be trend-setting for the later development of metal.

"Pursuing a heavier rock direction, Purple quickly became one of the most successful and influential bands of early '70s; joining Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin in spreading gospel of multi-decibel, piledriver British rock around the world."

This fact makes a survey of the personnel relationships of Deep Purple musicians and their successor bands with other well-known rock bands particularly clear.

In the 1970s, no distinction was made between hard rock and heavy metal, which only emerged at the end of the decade, so the band is sometimes wrongly assigned to heavy metal. From today's perspective, however, they can be clearly categorized as a hard rock band or a rock band with blues influences.

Highway Star, Fireball, Speed King, Hard Lovin' Man, Cry Free, Burn as well as the faster middle section from Child in Time are classified as early speed metal, or in the case of Speed King, thrash metal and of Burn, power metal songs. Stormbringer counts as a precursor to the gothic metal genre. The songs Flight of the Rat, Into the Fire and Bloodsucker, for example, can be classified as heavy metal from today's perspective.

Many style-forming and successful bands and musicians of the 1980s and 1990s from the field of rock, metal and New Wave of British Heavy Metal such as Queen, Iron Maiden, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Judas Priest, Europe, Yngwie Malmsteen, Ronnie James Dio, Metallica, Def Leppard, Alice in Chains, Pantera, Bon Jovi, Rush Venom and Motörhead, profess the essential influence of the band's music for their own musical development either explicitly in interviews or indirectly in their music. Especially Blackmore's style influenced many guitarists, like Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, John Norum or Joe Satriani, so that his aesthetics and also technique was and is taken up by many musicians. A live performance of Deep Purple, and here primarily that of Ritchie Blackmore, was also the decisive point for Lars Ulrich to become a musician.

Cover versions

Many songs were covered by other bands from the field of rock and metal. Already in 1972 Thin Lizzy recorded a tribute album with the most famous songs under the name Funky Junction, which was released in early 1973. Progressive metal band Dream Theater performed the Purple live album Made in Japan in its entirety at two concerts in 2006. In 2012, to mark Machine Head's 40th anniversary, the album Re-Machined: A Tribute to Deep Purple's Machine Head was released, featuring covers by Metallica, Iron Maiden, Carlos Santana and Chickenfoot, among others. David Coverdale's band Whitesnake released The Purple album in 2015, featuring 15 songs from Coverdale's Deep Purple era.

Also the guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen already released some new versions of the songs. With the participation of musicians like Vinnie Moore, T. M. Stevens and Joe Lynn Turner, an album with reggae and funk versions of well-known Deep Purple titles was created. Other cover versions played and released include Black Sabbath, Bruce Dickinson solo and with Iron Maiden, Guns n' Roses, Van Halen, Dio, Rainbow, Diamond Head, Puhdys, Paul Di'Anno (ex-Iron Maiden), Sepultura, Murphy's Law, Overkill, Opus, Helloween, Sonata Arctica, J.B.O., Mr. Ed Jumps the Gun, Metalium, Soulfly, Six Feet Under, Gorefest and DimmuBorgir.