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A path of sonic excess
Louder Sound reprints a Metal Hammer feature for newbies A metal fan’s guide to hard rock pioneers Deep Purple. Our regulars won’t find anything new in there, but if you happen to be reading this and wondering what this site is about, there’s your chance to educate yourselves. There are some minor inaccuracies here and there, but for an introductory read, it’s not bad. It covers the band from inception in 1968 until circa 2012, when the feature has appeared in print.
By the early 1970s, the spiralling number of music sub-genres led to different movements lining up over each other to sign up new recruits. Whatever kind of freak you were, you had a home to educate you on which bands to listen to and which drugs to take. Space-cases and acid goblins flocked to Pink Floyd. Black Sabbath attracted doomsday occultists, schoolyard burnouts and advanced demonologists. Funky sex machines had James Brown. Pill-shovelling biker pigs and sci-fi weirdos fell in with Blue Oyster Cult.
But what about the less-conflicted children of Woodstock? The beer-drinkers and hell-raisers, the clock-punching ham’n’eggers in dirty denim, living for the weekend? What was the colour of hoi polloi in the age of Aquarius? It was purple, brother. Deep Purple.
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Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Nothing but harmful 50-year old stereotypes that wasn’t true back then and less true now. I am heading to the DP show in Highland, CA and I will be listening to Ozzy Boneyard on the drive totally sober and non-occulty.
September 7th, 2026 at 01:20I don’t agree with you…and what do you think is the definition of the term stereotype?
September 8th, 2026 at 21:19No one has described that time better for a long time, the only thing missing is the description of Zepp fans, because if the author had said what he thought about them, only then would the hunting season have opened for him.
Yo,
Enjoy the show in Highland Dr.Bob, perhaps Vol.4 fully-cranked will get you there in good stead 🙂 !
Ciao !
September 8th, 2026 at 23:04As a summary of what DP were in the 70s and beyond, the article is actually quite apt. Yes – as I was one of those DP fans, I’m free to state this -, among the “Heavy Trinity”, Purple were as mainstream as you could be without being really mainstream. They weren’t dark and sinister, not fronted by a madman and did not dedicate whole albums to a drug like Black Sabbath did and they had none of the esoteric aloofness of Led Zep who to boot spent almost all their time in the US in stretch limos with teenage groupies. Purple were stellar musicians, but they were approachable and not unsettling, even someone as mischivous as Blackers. Ian Gillan was neither a (charming) buffoon like Ozzy nor a (detached) rock god like Plant. And he never wore his mom’s blouses on stage – knotted above his belly button.
Being a Purple fan meant you still went to school or to work on the next Monday. Ein bisschen spießig, but reliable.
September 17th, 2026 at 22:00