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WatcherOfTheSkies88 View Drop Down
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Points: 79 		Direct Link To This Post Topic: Deep Purple - Who Do We Think We Are
    Posted: June 09 2010 at 04:00
I don't quite understand why Deep Purple's album "Who Do We Think We Are" gets so much hate. I think it has some pretty sweet songs. Sure, it's not a masterpiece like Machine Head or In Rock... but it's still pretty good. "Woman From Tokyo" and "Rat Bat Blue" are great and there are some other good rockers on the album as well. 
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Points: 7872 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 09 2010 at 05:40
I don't understand it too.
Who are you and who am I to say we know the reason why... (D. Gilmour)
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Points: 252 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 09 2010 at 05:46
Yep...I like also "Smooth Dancer" with Gillan's lyrics against Blackmore
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Points: 3126 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 09 2010 at 09:00
Obviously I haven't been following this attitude of hate toward Who Do We Think We Are?  It was huge in the 70's and kids couldn't wait to pick it up upon the first week of it's release. In point what goes on today with the recording's reputation has little to do with it's major impact on kids in the 70's. Perhaps this is some modern mentality formed over the last 2 decades?
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Points: 79 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 09 2010 at 09:03
Originally posted by TODDLER TODDLER wrote:

Obviously I haven't been following this attitude of hate toward Who Do We Think We Are?  It was huge in the 70's and kids couldn't wait to pick it up upon the first week of it's release. In point what goes on today with the recording's reputation has little to do with it's major impact on kids in the 70's. Perhaps this is some modern mentality formed over the last 2 decades?


allmusic gives it a bad review: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:jifexqr5ldke

and this one gives it a bad review also: http://starling.rinet.ru/music/purple.htm#Are
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Points: 3449 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 09 2010 at 21:26
It's generally not well thought of, coming on the heels of In Rock, Fireball, Machine Head, and one of the great live albums ever made, Made In Japan.  Obviously, there are some good songs on the album, but the standard had been set and Who Do We Think We Are? was a disappointment.  Answer to the title's question:  "not as good a band as you think you are!"
Can you tell me where we're headin'?
Lincoln County Road or Armageddon.
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Points: 16111 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 10 2010 at 03:22
a couple of sweet songs and a lot of forgettable ones.



Personally I think Stormbringer is the one that shouldn't get so much hate!
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Points: 14258 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 10 2010 at 04:15
great album with outstanding tracks Woman from Tokyo
 
the poor things sandwiched between Machine Head and Burn
 
the album cover needed some work though
 
File:Deep Purple - Who Do We Think We Are.jpeg
 
The track list is sub standard in comparison to the two albums preceding it esp In Rock
 
 
but this is not too bad
 
No. Title Length
1. "Woman from Tokyo"   5:48
2. "Mary Long"   4:23
3. "Super Trouper"   2:54
4. "Smooth Dancer"   4:08

[edit] Side two

No. Title Length
5. "Rat Bat Blue"   5:23
6. "Place in Line"   6:29
7. "Our Lady"  
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Points: 20298 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 10 2010 at 04:57
Originally posted by WatcherOfTheSkies88 WatcherOfTheSkies88 wrote:

I don't quite understand why Deep Purple's album "Who Do We Think We Are" gets so much hate. I think it has some pretty sweet songs. Sure, it's not a masterpiece like Machine Head or In Rock... but it's still pretty good. "Woman From Tokyo" and "Rat Bat Blue" are great and there are some other good rockers on the album as well. 
 
Just compare:
 
 
You say yourself it's no masterpiece like Machine Head, but MH doesn't come to In Rock's waist level (although the US version without the intro of Speed King sucks)...
 
 As for Fireball , it's not bad (especially the US version with Strange Kind) ... and loads better than Who Do
 
and Burn is an excellent album
 
Rat Bat Blue is the only one I like
let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
rather than un-sheath our sword
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Points: 3577 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 10 2010 at 10:10
Definitely one underrated album, i like it a lot.
 
When i first hears it (the mid 80's) i love ot to death.
 
 




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Points: 15745 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 08 2010 at 17:02

I like it, but it's not illogical that it isn't highly regarded. After blockbuster albums such as Made In Japan, Machine Head and Fireball, Who Do We Think We Are was far from an ingenious and inspired release.

However, like Mike By-Tor said, Stormbringer (and Come Taste the Band) are albums that are not bad by any means, yet they are hated by the majority. Of course, it's the funky/soul influence in them, but I love them because of that.
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Points: 1416 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 08 2010 at 18:08
If you ask me, Burn and Stormbringer are the underrated ones, as said above
"WAAAAAAOOOOOUGH!    WAAAAAAAUUUUGGHHHH!!   WAAAAAOOOO!!!"

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Points: 330 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 09 2010 at 14:07
Contractual obligation. I used to(?) eat, sleep and breathe Purple. I bought that album when I was 14 or 15 and thought "man, you guys just aren't trying anymore".
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Points: 238 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 15 2010 at 18:39
I love this album.
I'm late to the party, I only recently got into Purple. It seems like there is no musical reason this album is worse than Fireball and that it is all Press/Reputation based.

Smooth Dancer and Super Trooper could both be on In Rock

Mary Long is fun.

Rat Bat Blue is pretty heavy.

Whats the problem?
Let the maps of war be drawn !

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Points: 4 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2013 at 16:14

Originally posted by otto pankrock otto pankrock wrote:

Contractual obligation. I used to(?) eat, sleep and breathe Purple. I bought that album when I was 14 or 15 and thought "man, you guys just aren't trying anymore".

Plus being exhausted after more than three years of relentless touring (both Glover and Blackmore nearly collapsed in that period. Plus Blackmore not being that interested (just listen to his guitar solo on Rat Bat Blue), holding back his best ideas if the booklet is to be trusted. Plus Glover being uninspired (monotonous bass lines). Plus Lord, while being the absolute master on the Hammond, sucked at synths in the studio. Smooth Dancer is kind of nice, but way inferior to Speed King. Place in Line is way inferior to Lazy, plus I hate Gillan's grunts. Our Lady could have done with a verse less and a nice instrumental coda. Etcetera, etcetera.

The only two good songs are Woman from Tokyo (great how Blackmore, Lord and Glover each play one note in turn to form a simple theme in the intro) and the out-take Painted Horse. That's no coincidence as they were recorded in Rome, July 1972. The other songs are from Germany, October 1972.

I don't hate Who do we think we are, but I didn't think it great back in 1979 when I heard it for the first time and I didn't like it more than 25 years later when I heard it for the second time.

It's what Gillan said some 10 years later: the band badly needed three months off.
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Points: 1127 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 03 2013 at 20:07
I bought it when it was released,and was kind of disappointed.
But these days,it's one of the MK2 Purple albums I still play.
There really are some good tracks on here.
Shake & bake.
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Points: 8238 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 17 2013 at 17:07
I, too, bought the LP when it came out and wondered what the hell happened to their writing skills.  It wasn't that the musicianship was lacking, it's just that the songs were pedestrian, vanilla rock and I still view it in that light.  Sometimes the well runs dry, I guess.
"Literature is well enough, as a time-passer, and for the improvement and general elevation and purification of mankind, but it has no practical value" - Mark Twain
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Points: 32995 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 17 2013 at 17:14
it is simply not a great album.
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