Machine Head by Deep Purple
We are down to the final 3. The 3 best rock albums of all time – can you handle it?
3. Machine Head – Deep Purple
The original only had 7 tracks on the album, but every track is pure genius. The 6th album by the biggest rock band in the world (at the time) was released in 1972 and made no.1 in the UK charts, staying there for 20 weeks. That should tell you something.
Highway Star opens the album at a blistering pace, followed by Maybe I’m a Leo and the stunning Pictures of Home. Never Before is probably the weakest track on the album, but then comes the simple but brilliant (or is that simply brilliant), Smoke on the Water. Lazy is quite simply breathtaking (although the live version actually knocks socks off it) and the finale Space Truckin leaves you wanting more, much more. This is what makes this album so good – it’s the Fawlty Towers of albums. There were only ever 12 episodes of FT and yet you still watch them over and over again. It’s the same with Machine Head.
Rock Countdown 
I find this quite interesting…I am the huegest DP fan there is (well maybe not, but you get the picture) and yet while Machine Head is a lcassic album in every respect, personally I don’t rate it ahead of other DP cuts or even against some of those done by Blackmore’s spin-off, Rainbow. I suspect it has got the following and aura of a classic as it rides solely on the anthemic “Smoke on the Water”, and yes it has been covered by “Classic Albums”, but In Rock surely presents as contender for nothing if being the album that took them into the direction we know and love them for. But for me, nothing beats Purple (and especially Blackmore) live – Made in Japan (the re-release) and Live in London, and even California Jam (last two being Mark III) are amongst my playlists in the car or on the ride-on mower!
Will read through your other albums, am very intrigued to see the next two!
Thanks for your opinons dude! Am a massive Dp and Rainbow fan, and as much as I agree with Live in Japan being up there, I have tried not to integrate any “live” albums as such. However, I stand by my countdown. Machine Head is by far their best – Highway Star, Pictures of Home, Lazy and Space Truckin and of course Smoke on the Water. What the album done for DP and still continues to do justifies this surely!?!
Top 2 to follow….