“The album is a dying art form,” Roger Glover told Classic Rock in 2017. “They don’t make money, and they’re a waste of time and effort."
It hasn't stopped Deep Purple. Since releasing their 20th album InFinite in 2017, they've released their 21st (Whoosh!), their 22nd (Turning To Crime), and are readying themselves for their 23rd (=1, out in July). If they're a dying artform, then Glover's band have been aiming bellows at the embers.
These are Roger Glover's seven favourite tracks from those 22 albums.
Hard Lovin’ Man (Deep Purple In Rock, 1970)
“Unlike concert halls, studios are very dead spaces. But the live sound we got on stage changed the band; it made us animated and aggressive. We started making violent music. With Hard Lovin’ Man there was no toning down, it was full-on. Even in the studio, Jon was still rocking his Hammond back and forth. That song was a breakthrough for us because it defined what we did on stage.”
No One Came (Fireball, 1971)
“The thing I liked about Sly &The Family Stone was that the bass always plays on the off-beat. We started messing around with that. I think Ritchie came up with the chords. Ian Gillan wrote a brilliant set of lyrics which presaged his life ahead. I don’t think Ritchie liked the song very much because he wanted more melody, but No One Came was like rap before rap."
Space Truckin’ (Machine Head, 1972)
“When I lived in America I turned on the car radio and heard this great song: really funky, but tough-sounding. I thought: ‘This is fantastic.’ It took me about ten seconds to realise it was us – the funky section with the jam between Paicey and Ritchie. I’ve never been able to see what other people liked about us. We had great success, but why? Suddenly I understood. I know that sounds strange.”
Rat Bat Blue (Who Do We Think We Are!, 1973)
"There’s an old R&B song called, I think, Watch Your Step. I don’t know whether Ritchie used that as a blueprint for Rat Bat Blue, but our song has got a great riff. The album was a difficult one to make but Rat Bat Blue blew me away.”
Perfect Strangers (Perfect Strangers, 1984)
“It has an unusual arrangement, based on a song of Ritchie’s that he had tried out unsuccessfully a year or two earlier with Rainbow. At our first [post-reunion] jam together, we started jamming and it kicked – mostly because of Paicey, who has a feel unlike any other drummer. Even when he’s playing hard rock he’s a swing merchant. The segment when the riff goes down to an ‘E’ always blows me apart.”
Loosen My Strings (Purpendicular, 1996)
“One day at a studio in Orlando, I was early and changing strings, playing anything to see that I was in tune. Suddenly, a guitar started playing something that was completely different to what I’d done. I didn’t even know that Steve was there. He suggested we do it over again in a song. Loosen My Strings is written from the view of a guitar to its owner.”
Above And Beyond (Now What?!, 2013)
“Above And Beyond means a lot to me because it was about Jon Lord, who died while we were making the album. Uncommon Man was another we wrote about Jon, whose memory permeates that entire album. Steve started playing this riff that was unimaginably good. Heavy as fuck, yet it goes into this beautiful song which Ian sings very well.”
Deep Purple's =1 is available to pre-order now.
