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ROCK AND ROLL! => Deep Purple => Mk II: Gillan & Glover => Topic started by: KiloDeltaCharlie on May 06, 2021, 08:33:01 AM
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I came to this album late, and I don't know why it's a great little album. It's probably more consistent than In Rock maybe on a par with Machine Head... this excercise should finally determine in my mind which is better! ;)
Fireball
One of the great album openers, from the opening drum lick to the vocal melody, this uptempo 3½ minute rocker is the sort of song all albums should start with! Great effort.
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Here's a 4-minute rocker played by Deep Purple's onetime opening band, Canada's Warpig:
Not a note-for-note thing here, but there's definitely the genesis of "Fireball" in the main riff of this song. Maybe Blackmore thought he was justified in borrowing it because there are several "Speed King" references in the Warpig tune. Also a bit of "Flight of the Rat" there at 2:40, leading into another "Speed King" reference.
Tighten it up, speed it up, and go in different directions with that riff. Honestly, a few bars into the Deep Purple song and I've forgotten most of the other tune. I just know that the main riff got pinched by the man who advised every aspiring young musician to hire a good team of lawyers once they've learned two chords! :D
Paicey's drumming is absolutely on point, not missing anything, great fills throughout.
And yes, we need to include Demon's Eye with this album, like Black Night goes with In Rock.
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And yes, we should also include Strange Kind of Woman for the same reason! ;) :P
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And yes, we should also include Strange Kind of Woman for the same reason! ;) :P
That's right! Demon's Eye and SKoW got switched out between the UK and USA releases.
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No No No
This is my second favorite track, behind No One Came. I love the heavy groove that Roger Glover's bass lays down and Lord's overdriven organ sound is perfect. Gillan's got passion in his vocals, Paicey rocks steady, and that smooth solo from Blackmore takes me to another place. It's very much a "heavy blues" sort of tune that, while not metal, is guaranteed hard rock gold.
When Lord does his solo, it's another chill part that I just love to savor. I swear, I can almost *taste* how good it is. The guitar/organ bridge that goes back to the hard verse section is brilliant stuff. It's progressive without sounding like the band is announcing at the start, "This will be a progressive rock composition."
Man, that bass line is a gas! And that's a great finish on it, to boot. This one and No One Came are definitely in my top 20 DP songs of all time, and in my top 10 of the Mk2 output. (Given that there were only 28 album tracks and 2 singles, a top 20 of Mk2 would be all but 10 songs!)
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Fireball was for the longest time my second favourite of the classic Purple albums before In Rock inched past it but it still holds a very special place in my heart.
The album kicks off with a fierce rocker that is the title track. With the iconic air conditioner intro and that drum beat leading to the brilliant fast riff...all is right there. And Ian's fast vocals are nothing short of suberb.
This battles Highway Star for the best (and most iconic) DP album opener of all time. Such a great track and it also shows that a brilliant and versatile track doesn't have to be 6 minutes long to rock.
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Going to listen to this album today, thanks guys for the inspiration - a truly great album.
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No No No
A nice mid-tempo rocker with slower parts. One of the best songs on the album. I like Gillan's vocals on this, the bass seems to hold it all together, while fine guitar and keyboard solos raise it up a notch further.
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I'll be the party pooper on this track though..
No No No is a bit of a no no no for me...it's easily my least favourite track on the album. It's not a horrible track but it is bit lackluster. It lacks punch and Ian's vocals sound bit tired to me. Like he wasn't 100% in with the song.
Jon Lord has some great keyboard parts on this one but other than that I can't really find anything of note.
This is the track that I skip from this album most of the time.
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Are we going US edition next (Stange Kind of Woman), or European edition (Demon's Eye)?
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Fireball is my 2nd favourite DP album, after DPIR. My favourite songs on the album are the title track, No No No and Fools, with Demon's Eye and The Mule not far behind. Strange Kind of Woman is pretty good too.
I have the 25th Anniversary Edition CD which includes 9 bonus tracks. Notable among the bonus tracks are the outtake Slow Train, a remix of SKOW, The Noise Abatement Society and a 1st take of the title track, w/o vocals, bass solo, etc.
Ted
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Fireball is my 2nd favourite DP album, after DPIR. My favourite songs on the album are the title track, No No No and Fools, with Demon's Eye and The Mule not far behind. Strange Kind of Woman is pretty good too.
I have the 25th Anniversary Edition CD which includes 9 bonus tracks. Notable among the bonus tracks are the outtake Slow Train, a remix of SKOW, The Noise Abatement Society and a 1st take of the title track, w/o vocals, bass solo, etc.
Ted
I won't mind adding the bonus tracks from the 25th anniv. CD at the end of our analysis. Slow Train and Freedom are two faves of mine.
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Are we going US edition next (Stange Kind of Woman), or European edition (Demon's Eye)?
Let's do Strange Kind of Woman, then Demon's Eye.
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Strange Kind of Woman
And so the story continues of Gillan's wierd sexual exploits/mishaps! ;) Actually, I really like this song, it comes across as a happy song, quite commercial, with a nice riff, and Richie's solo's are good.
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Always loved Strange Kind Of Woman. Extremely catchy riff, great vocal melody and great slightly tongue in cheek kind of lyrics. But this again was one of those songs that truly came alive in the live setting with the added jam parts and solos and Ian's adlibs.
I would actually be willing to say this is a top 3 song for me from the album...
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On the studio version, it's a great rocker, I'm with Charger that it's my 3rd place song on the album. Also with Charger that this was a completely transformed song live. Either way, it's a fun song with singalong type lyrics.
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Demon's Eye
I quite like this song, but's it not among my favourites on the album. It's a solid song, everything is how it should be... nice riff, nice keyboards, good solo, nothing wrong with the vocals, but nothing stands out to raise this above the average!
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I've grown to like Demon's Eye more and more as the years go on. But, with so many *better* tracks from the album, I've got it at the top of the bottom half! And if I rate in Freedom and Slow Train, it moves lower. But it's such a great song in and of itself, I feel better giving it an overall score than a stack ranking to show its worth. Blackmore's solo is smooth stuff and Gillan does a great job with vocals.
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Demon's Eye is again among my favourites. But since the album is pretty much filled with favourites it's hard to say for sure where this lands now...
The riff is brilliant and Ian's vocals are great. The solo section has some nice groove to it as well. Always loved the lyrics as well.
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Anyone's Daughter
... and then there's a country song on the album. This was my biggest surprise on my first listen, I was totally off-guard for the quietness of it all. It's a pleasant enough tune with a very witty Gillan lyric, but it doesn't really fit with the rest of the album. If the first half had closed out with Freedom or Slow Train instead, I wouldn't have missed Anyone's Daughter, TBH.
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Anyone's Daughter is a pleasant surprise. A change in musical style for sure, but I think it works well. The honky tonk piano and Ian's vocals work really well, I love the little side comments he throws in "Yes I did... it was nice!".
Another highlight on the album for me.
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Anyone's Daughter is probably the closest Purple ever came to write an actual full blown comedy song. The lyrics are hilarious and the music is totally out there in a very funny way.
This is a song that always puts a gigantic smile on my face when ever I hear it...kind of like Sabbath's Fairies Wear Boots. Both are just super funny humor songs.
This is one of my favourites I have to say.
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Time to flip over the album and play "The Mule".
If anything points back to the prog beginnings of the band, it's this track and Fools.
There's a lovely Gillan vocal line without belting things out and then... uhmmmm... I get lost in the keyboard part, which I'm sure got lifted from some classical composer somewhere at least in part. Blackmore's sudden jam then gets forced back into the strange drum rhythm... is this 6/8? 9/8? There are definite triplets in there and there ain't no syncopation in the normal way. Honestly, if Rod Evans were singing it, it would have fit right in on the 3rd DP album just fine. It's not bad, just... a departure from what they were busy doing.
Of course, played live, there's no layering or fancy stuff like that, so they rock out and let Paicey do a massive drum solo. They save all the prog for the end jam with Mandrake Root.
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The Mule
I don't mind this one, probably confirms in my mind that there isn't a bad track on the album. It's not the best track though but there are some nice bits to it.
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The Mule
I don't mind this one, probably confirms in my mind that there isn't a bad track on the album. It's not the best track though but there are some nice bits to it.
I have to agree. It's not my favorite on the album, but I definitely don't ever avoid it.
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The Mule is the second song on this album that I'm not too keen about. It feels bit lackluster to me actually.
Funny bit about this is that Ian once introduced this song as the Mole! And had to correct himself after the song saying it's actually called the Mule! :D
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Fools
When I heard this song live, I realized that Steve Morse was the perfect guitar player for it. That being said, it's another progressive track that mingles hard and soft and different textures. It's a trippy tune. I don't skip it, but I also find it outshone by the other tracks on the album.
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And then we come to my absolute favourite track on the album, the mighty, the epical...FOOLS!
The soft intro that leads into a superheavy chord riff with Ian belting out those killer vocals...this is a song that captivates the listener. There's a lot going on, it's like a constant battle between softness and ultra heavy.
And again this is one of those songs that truly again elevated itself in the live setting. It's shame the original line-up never played this song live but honestly Morse does such an incredible job with it I can't possibly imagine Ritchie doing anything better.
This is again a true masterpiece of a song...it is rather incredible that they had one of these songs on all of their first 3 albums.
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Fools
Maybe my favourite on the album (I need to think about it further), the soft and hard elements really works well and the way it suddenly changes from one to the other is great. One of Ian's best vocal melodies too, and the slow drum section is very simple but works really well. Very good song.
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No One Came
This one is *my* favorite. I love the lyric and quote parts of it all the time, especially, "It's only the glitter and shine that gets through / where's my Robin Hood outfit?" It's the first of a thread of songs Gillan writes in his career about the interaction of fame, press, trends, and how it relates to what really matters.
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No One Came
It's a quite enjoyable song, compared with the rest of the album it is amid-position, but as I've said before there's no bad track on the album. I might have had Fools as the album closer though. Nice vocals from Ian, and a chugging rhythm works well.
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No One Came is another strong favourite of mine. It's musically quite different and has quite a bit going on and lyrically it again has some of the funniest lyrics Ian has ever come up with. Another one of those songs that always leaves you feeling happy. A proper feel good song this one.
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The Olympia 1996 version of No One Came with horns is even more fun, it's my favorite version of the song.
Now for the best outtakes, Slow Train and Freedom...
Freedom - this is what Flight of the Rat should have been. Less pretention and borrow more from the Golden Age of rock with that straightforward verse and melody. No faffing about with sonata format or improvisational free-form sections. Proper Little Richard-style screamin' at the end, brilliant major key upbeat rocker of a song.
Slow Train - this takes a hard In Rock-style riff and gets a wee bit proggy with it. There's a witty lyric to go with it - I think of this + Freedom as what Flight of the Rat should have been. That is two say, two songs instead of one, with tighter writing on both.
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My 1996 25th Anniversary copy has a song call I'm Alone which is quite funky, I quite like it, but I've not really heard it enough.
Freedom - another I've only heard a couple of times before - is in the vein of an early Rock N Roll song you might have expected from, say, Little Richard. Not really my sort of song, if not actually bad.
Slow Train - the title suggests a soft bluesy number, but it's actually uptemp and proggy (in the solos anyway). I need to hear it more to fully judge, but I didn't really care for it!
I think I understand why these didn't make the final cut.
The final ranking:
Really good songs:
Fireball
Anyone's Daughter
Some Kind of Woman
Fools
Most enjoyable:
No No No
No One Came
Not Bad:
The Mule
Demon's Eye
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I'm with KDC...I'm Alone is by far the best of the "extra tracks" on the 25th anniversary edition. Very nice rocker and is lyrically quite good too...I have to say I would have chosen that track to be on the album instead of the Mule or No No No!
The other two I haven't really listened to all that much which speaks in volumes I think...although I might just give them a spin today!
I'd rate the tracks:
1. Fools
2. Fireball
3. No One Came
4. Demon's Eye
5. Strange Kind Of Woman
6. Anyone's Daughter
(Wild card: I'm Alone)
7. The Mule
8.. No No No
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Whoops! I forgot I'm Alone! That's another one that I enjoy.
Songs I pretty much put on every playlist I make:
No One Came
No No No
Fireball
Freedom
Great fun, not on all my playlists, but still good jams:
Strange Kind of Woman
Demon's Eye
Slow Train
I'm Alone
I need to be in a certain mood for these, but I don't skip them:
Anyone's Daughter
Fools
The Mule
Bad tracks:
{null set}
Overall, I rate this album:
:awesome:
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Shiiiit and I forgot Strange Kind Of Woman! :doh:
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Shiiiit and I forgot Strange Kind Of Woman! :doh:
With all the material they had, just a few more tracks and they could've had a double album.
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^ Speaking of which, what would be your track order if you had all 11 tracks to arrange if this had been a CD release?
Whatever the order, I don't think that it starts with anything other than "Fireball". That is an opening track, no two ways about it. I'm imagining the feel of the mix if any other tune opens the set and it's just not right for the rest of the tracks.
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That's a pretty good question actually...
But yeah Fireball would have to be the opener no matter what. It's the perfect opener track.
I also think No One Came works very well as a closer...lyrically too...like the album is the show they played and then just realise that No One Came to the show...
I might throw in I'm Alone before Fools adding a bit of speed near the end and then Slow Train after No No No and Freedom maybe before The Mule or maybe before Anyone's Daughter...depending a little where I'd throw Strange Kind Of Woman... :D
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I think it is more where would you fit the extra tracks into the original listing. I think I suggested previously that I would put Fools as the album closer rather than No One Came. After that I would go with:
Side 1
Fireball
No No No
Freedom
Slow Train
Demon's Eye
Anyone's Daughter
Side 2
Strange Kind od Woman
The Mule
I'm Alone
No One Came
Fools
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I like the thought of Fools closing it out. I'd actually like to see it show up on Machine Head as a lead-in to Pictures from Home. Very chilling pair, those two.
But this is my crack at the lineup plus four:
Fireball
Strange Kind of Woman
Demon's Eye
No No No
I like Demon's Eye leading into No No No, as it kinda adds to the tension that No No No releases. Moving on to the next group of four...
I'm Alone
Fools
Anyone's Daughter
The Mule
I think AD would fit beautifully as an acoustic interlude between the two most brooding songs on the album. Now the final three:
Slow Train
Freedom
No One Came
Slow Train takes that energy from The Mule and speeds it up. Freedom then explodes in a big ol' burst of sunshine before the reality of No One Came comes up to set us all straight and give us a tongue-in-cheek farewell.