Deep Purple in Rock... the RSM Review

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Deep Purple
Deep Purple in Rock (1970)

Rating: Unfavorable
"On the other hand, there are bands like Deep Purple, who lack both expertise and intuition, plodding along and hanging in there album after album in spite of being such quiet nonentities that they're not even good copy. After their experiment with the 'Royal Philharmonic Orchestra', Concerto For Group and Orchestra, sly old Deep Purple have pulled a surprise move and returned to their roots. What a vastly versatile aggregation these five Limey lads! But if the 'Rock' in the title is meant to invoke the last 20 years' heritage, somebody's got their wires badly crossed. The only roots in evidence here are all the clubfooted 'heavy' riffs laid down in the last three years, and even there Deep Purple fails to carry the ball." (Lester Bangs, 12/2/70 Review)

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn! It's like the guy never listened to the album! Return to roots? How about a complete reinvention of their sound! This is a bad review because it looks like it's just a curmudgeon hating on something new that he really doesn't get.

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....aaaand another one.

I don't know should I cry or laugh about these...so I'll choose to laugh.

 

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This is why I don't care for reviews of a genre from people who aren't also fans of the genre. If a guy can't stand orchestral music, I'm not going to ask him how he'd compare Prokofiev to Cesar Cui. If the guy is a scholar of Russian Romanticism, that's the person I want to hit up with that question.

While it's true that there's a lot of average-sounding stuff out there and a fair portion of stuff that's outright bad, in the field of hard rock and metal, Deep Purple in Rock is neither average nor bad. If you put on the opening track and break out in a rash, then stop listening. The rest of the album will not cure that rash. But if you put on that first track and you're all

 

Then keep listening, there's plenty more where that came from!

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Couldn't agree more!

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Reading some other poorly-done reviews, I come away with an impression that most of these reviewers weren't looking for something *good*. They were looking for something that they could be all trendier-than-thou about for liking or hating.

Maybe it's because they want something objective rather than subjective... like, "Is there a lot of bass? Then it's garbage. Did anyone scream on any part of the album? Garbage. Did the singer dress up all pretty and sparkly? GENIUS!"

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Indeed...and I've also read a lot of reviews from magazines where it was clear that the reviewer had never even listened to the album...just spewing out some generic nonsense and about the perception they had of the band in question.

I think there was one once of a Deep Purple album...might have been Abandon or Bananas...not sure which where the reviewer still though Ritchie Blackmore was in the band and pondered why his playing had changed...

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ALWAYS read the band lineup on the packaging. ALWAYS.

That's like listening to Heaven and Hell and wondering if Ozzy took diction lessons and got into D&D...

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Right!

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I just had fun writing a review as if I only listened to 30 seconds of Machine Head and decided to start work on the panning I planned to give them then and there.