A Petition for Deep Purple

philippe wrote: Deep Purple have never played prog rock music or progressive music...the inclusion of different musical genres is too anecdotic in their respective albums

I agree ... I never listened to their pre-70 albums in detail, but I don't have to, because the early 70s albums (Machine Head, In Rock, Burn, Fireball, Stormbringer and Come Taste The Band) are the peak of their work, and they should be judged by those. Just like Queen cannot be judged by Queen I & II.

The Taste spin-off band is called Stud, by the way.

I've often said here that I think Deep Purple should be included here; there are many bands of the same type, such as Uriah Heep, Atomic Rooster, Quatermass and DP spin offs like Warhorse and Captain Beyond, all of whom are present here. However, Deep Purple were before any of these, and their first 6 years or so produced some of the best progressive hard rock music you'll ever hear. Indeed, Vanilla Fudge, who the earlier Purple are often compared to, sound far less adventurous to me than the first Deep Purple albums are, yet Fudge are included.

Same with Spooky Tooth- perhaps the most criminally underrated rock band of the era. They did some brilliant cover versions of songs like 'Society's Child', 'I Am The Walrus' and 'Tobacco Road', plus superb original songs like 'That Was Only Yesterday', 'Better By You, Better Than Me' and 'Waitin' On The Wind', that compare very well with early prog bands of the era like Traffic and The Nice.

milla wrote: I think "Child In Time"  is fairly proggy

"Child in Time" could qualify as an ultimate progressive rock track, if there were such a classification. Its perfectly analogous to the overall feel of I.T.C.O.T.C.K. - but with additional amps. Very haunting and powerful, all at the same go. And this was not their only progressive piece, by a longshot. The album Deep Purple (1969) was really nothing but this very type of brilliance.

One member mentioned that early DP was more of a psychedelic nature. I would agree, except for one important thing: DPs instrumental workouts were highly sklillful and very thoughtful. This being a significant characteristic of Prog. In contrast, psychedelic jams were more of a haphazard and sloppy nature (i.e., 'who cares, man?' ).

A couple of people have said that DP were heavy metal only, one member citing Led Zepellin and Black Sabbath in the same breath. These isolated members have probably not heard even a single note off of DPs first four albums - or they wouldn't have placed their credibility into question by making such an assumption.

NO!

BaldFriede wrote: Some mention that some of the work of DP is "psychedelic but not prog"; yet we have a prog sub-genre "psychedelic/space" in the archive. I for my part would include them under "prog metal". I wholeheartedly support Trouserpress' suggestion of a "bands of interest" category though; DP would best go there (along with Led Zeppelin, who definitely have their prog moments too, and an album like "Physical Graffiti" is prog for me).

For me "Physical Graffiti" is not Prog as Neither are Led Zeppelin, why this  desire to add any band who are not "straight" rock to the Archives?

It would be interesting to have a 'prog blues' category methinks- there were some excellent bands like The Groundhogs, Bakerloo, May Blitz, Savoy Brown, Fleetwood Mac, Chicken Shack, Blodwyn Pig, Cream and many others who took the basic blues form into adventurous new heights. Indeed, most of these bands have been labelled 'progressive blues' in articles and sleevenotes I've read.

Edited by salmacis