Chasing the long tail of new media
Album: Deep Purple in Rock
Year: 1970
One of the things that Deep Purple had that a lot of their metal contemporaries lacked was escape velocity: the ability to play their songs at a ferocious speed for an extended period of time.
Led by their multifaceted (and eternally underrated) drummer Ian Paice, they could lock into an uptempo groove and just keep going and going.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #295: Deep Purple – “Flight of The Rat”
Album: Deep Purple in Rock
Year: 1970
It’s probably just me, but I feel like these days Deep Purple doesn’t get the same love and respect that their metal-pioneer peers Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath get.
I understand why: Zeppelin is Zeppelin, and their reputation has grown to the point where they’re in the conversation as the greatest band of all time. (Or at least my conversation.)
And Black Sabbath has always benefited by the contrast between the outsized darkness of their music and the outsized outlandishness of Ozzy Osbourne. In contrast, Deep Purple really didn’t have an overarching mythology: they were just a bunch of great musicians who happened to play hard rock.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #294: Deep Purple – “Child in Time”