Deep Purple

An updated version of the album came out. It was a 2 CD version. Disc 1 is exactly the same as the original 2005 release. Disc 2 is "all new". This new version has 8 extra tracks. Most are live, but there's a few standouts. The standouts for the updated version are an alternate version of "Clearly Quite Absurd", and.. "The Well Dressed Guitar", which is a track I've been waiting on Deep Purple to release for some time now. Back before they released their last album (Bananas), I saw 'em live, and they played Well Dressed in concert, saying it was something they were working on for their next album. It was FABULOUS. I absolutely loved it. So I waited, and before Bananas came out, the space shuttle exploded. Because of that, Steve Morse wrote a song that appeared on Bananas called "Contact Lost". It bumped Well Dressed from the album. They said Well Dressed might turn up as a B Side or something, and it never did. So I hoped it would be on Rapture, and it wasn't. I had just a bootleg mp3 of the track, which wasn't the same. Then I heard of this 2 CD Special Edition of Rapture of the Deep, and Well Dressed WAS on there. As good as the main Rapture of the Deep album is, I think "The Well Dressed Guitar" is a track worth picking up the 2CD version of, even if you have the original - I feel it's that good. I will go so far as to say that "Well Dresses" is by far my favorite single track of the Steve Morse era, and Ian Gillan doesn't even sing on it. :)

If you don't have either version, get this one. As I write this in May of 2007, they're priced pretty much the same, so the 2CD version is a much better value anyway.

I saw Deep Purple back in 1994 when Steve Morse had just joined the band (the gig I saw with him was his third ever). In that review, I wrote this.. "Very good concert by a band who surprised me. Well worth the long trip to see them, and I hope they continue." Boy have they continued, and they're like a good wine, they're getting better with age. Their last few albums havent' done well sales wise in the US, which is a damn crime.

Purpendicular was spectacular, one of the best of Purple's entire catalogue. Abandon I didn't care for, but some did. Bananas was a wonderful album, but I think suffered from the perception it got from its goofy title.

Rapture of the Deep is very much a traditional sounding Deep Purple album, and when I started writing this review, I planned on doing a track by track review of it, which is something I generally do. The problem I have is that the album is so universally solid, I'd end up saying most the same thing for every track. This is a great album from start to finish. Even the tracks that others feel are weak in some other reviews I've read I like. It's been said Ian Gillan isn't the screamer he used to be, and that's for sure. He can't wail like he could when he was in his 20's, but his "modern voice" fits the material perfectly. There's rockers, ballads, and everything in between. A great piece of modern music from one of the bands that defined hard rock. The lyrics in the song "MTV" are fairly amusing, and when I saw Purple turn up on Eddie Trunk's show on VH1 Classic, that's all I could think of. :)

You cannot go wrong with this album. Geezer rock be damned.

It's taken awhile since Purple's last album to get a new one out. I know these guys qualify now for "Geezer Rock" status, and at this point in their lives, I'd wager Deep Purple isn't the most important thing in their lives. Having said that, I'd like to see less than 5 years between albums. Although, if it takes 5 years, you might as well make a good album, and that's what they did here. This is wonderful - pretty solid all the way through. Kicks Abandon in the head. It's not as good as Purpendicular, but there's several standout tracks here (House of Pain, Haunted, Razzle Dazzle, Silver Tongue, Picture of Innocence, Doing it Tonight). I think you get my point. Howver, there's one major MAJOR problem with Bananas..

Note: My rant below was from when I first wrote this review. There has since been US distribution, but no promotion. You still can't find an average US music fan that even knows this exists - and that shouldn't be. This is a wonderful album! It was originally released Aug 25, 2003, but wasn't on sale in the US domestically until sometime in 2004. What an annoyance! :mad:

Rant: That is that Deep Purple's management is to be held accountable for the failure that is the fact that you cannot buy the album in the US! Now I know that Deep Purple isn't what they were in the United States. Hell, no kind of music of this genre is appreciated anymore, it's all dominated by garbage like Korn, Britney Spears, Justin Timerlake.... However, if you're a fan of this kind of music (Purple that is, not the other crap I just mentioned), you should at least be able to get the thing, unpopular in the States that this genre is. The further annoyance is that when I tell people about the album, they didn't even know it existed! That's a bigger travesty.

Purple has NO US distribution of any kind. None. In order to obtain this album, I had to buy it from Amazon's UK site and get it imported. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, it ended up costing me about $18 to get the CD over here, and it was well worth it because there's a lot of great tunes on the album.

An album I was looking forward to greatly after the success of Purpendicular. I was let down. It has in my opinion only one really great track - the first one. I tried a couple of years later to get into it again, hoping it was just my disappointment in not getting Purpendicular again. I still couldn't get into it. I've read a lot of reviews that say its' brilliant, but I just don't see it. Not recommended at all.

The Battle Raged On alright, with Ritchie Blackmore finally quitting Purple for good. That left them in a bind, so they toured with Joe Satriani for a bit, then settling on Steve Morse. Steve brought a freshness into the band they hadn't had in ages, and the result was the very brilliant Purpendicular album. This is the third of the three Purple masterpiece CD's (Machine Head & Perfect Strangers being the others). A definite must purchase.

You can tell the album will be different in the opening riff to the first song (Ted the Mechanic). Doesn't sound like Ritchie straight off, but it still sounds like Purple, which is great.

This is the modern Purple classic - a definite must purchase, I think.

OK, I realize that it's not technically a Deep Purple album, but putting it anywhere else except in "Deep Purple" in my collection didn't seem right. I also realize that it's not in order of release, but for some reason I have a hard time listing tribute albums in with a band's regular albums. Anyway, it's an OK tribute. I bought it at the time because it had former Purple & Sabbath singer Glenn Hughes singing on it.

Record company pressure forced Purple to rehire Ian Gillan to replace Joe Lynn Turner (who apparently had already recorded some stuff for this album). This is a forgotten Purple album, most people don't even know about it, but there's some great tracks on here, some really good jazzy stuff on here (Anya, Ramshackle Man) - plus the title track has a lot of power to me, I doubt JLT would have pulled that one off the same way.

Well, during the tour for the last album, the Ian Gillan/Ritchie Blackmore feud caused Gillan to leave again. The band carried on with Ritchie bringing in former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner for this album. It's nowhere near the greatest, but there are some really stellar tracks here (Fire in the Basement, King of Dreams), along with some absolute drek, too (Breakfast in Bed, the worst Purple song ever). About the only thing that saves this from being a Rainbow album is the presence of Jon Lord. I'd buy other Purple before this one, but it's not really that bad.

A live album that came out after Blue Light, but at the time of it's release I thought it was recorded during the Perfect Strangers tour due to a lack of songs from the Blue Light album. Also, has a re-recording of the old 60's era Purple song Hush, this time vocalized by Ian Gillan. In fact, this version of Hush is the main reason I still keep this album. Although my version appears to be an older print, because this version that I link to DOES have songs from the Blue Light album.

A good, if not spectacular follow up to 84's Perfect Strangers. There's some great stuff on here (Bad Attitude, The Unwritten Law, etc). Not as strong as Perfect Strangers, but definitely worth a look. If you can find it, as it's been out of print for awhile.

Purple's second (of three) masterpieces (the first being Machine Head - the third comes later). Deep Purple reunited in the mid 80's with the classic 70's (Machine Head era) Purple lineup, and produced this. A brilliant album - even now, 20 years later. It holds up very well, and in my opinion, is Machine Head's equal, though I know a lot of Purple fans don't agree with that.

At the time it was new, I really wanted to detest the album, as Ian Gillan had left Black Sabbath to reform Purple and make this album. Couldn't hate it, it's brilliant.

A Purple greatest hits album that covered from the In Rock album up to the point that Purple was when they finally broke up in the 70's. This also has material from the David Coverdale era, but didn't have Hush with their original signer. A great way to "catch up" with the Purple material from the 70's.

Deep Purple Mk III's masterpiece, Burn. When people think of Deep Purple, they tend to think of Ian Gillan and "Smoke on the Water". However, there's some other music without Ian, and this is the best of that lot.

Burn is a fabulous album, and due to the influences of David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes, has a slightly "funkier" sound than the early 70's Gillan output. But don't overlook it. Burn (the song) is one of the all time best single Deep Purple songs ever. Mistreated is also a great song - so much so, that Ritchie also played this a lot with Rainbow. But this album is one you shouldn't overlook when looking for hard rock and an album in the Deep Purple / Black Sabbath family of bands/albums.

Note: I bought this album from iTunes, I don't have a physical CD for this.

Deep Purple's Sgt Pepper's. This album is one of the founding slabs on the foundation of Rock and Roll. Every song on Machine Head is brilliant. There is absolutely no filler here, and this album should be required listening for anyone who claims to like rock & roll. As with In Rock, Machine Head also has a 25th Anniversary re-release, but I still have the regular one only.

While this wasn't Purple's debut album (it was their third or fourth studio album, I believe), In Rock is a blistering change to Rock/metal music by this band (Before this they played more poppish rock). Two of Purple's most well known songs are from here, Speed King & Child In Time. An extremely solid album. There is also a 25th Anniversary re-release of this album with twice as many songs, but I haven't gotten that one.