08. Deep Purple Fireball 1971 (Harvest)
Hard Rock
More like a shining star than a blazing fireball.
Overview
The third straight studio entry by Deep Purple in this journal. Their first with the Mk.I line-up
Deep Purple their third album had entered at number ten and their fourth album
In Rock and first with the Mk.II line-up had entered at an impressive fourth spot, and by now the band were major players on the world stage with
Fireball being their first number one album in the UK.
Fireball would see the band building off the power and intensity of their breakthrough album
In Rock, but instead of just making a carbon copy of
In Rock which could have been an option for the band, they decided to go for a more challenging and engaging listen on
Fireball. This is not to say that Deep Purple went soft on this album, as the album contains some really powerful stuff as you’d expect from Purple, but they also decided to incorporate a more slower paced and laid back approach to the album in general, and at times a more humorous approach to their sound can be noted as well, just check out “Anyone’s Daughter”. Experimentation was always going to be an option with this band, especially with the talent that they had on offer and
Fireball would be the most experimental release of the whole Mk.II line-up. Most of the more experimental stuff can be found littered across the album, with the lengthy experimental offerings mostly on side-two of the album. In many ways, Deep Purple may have taken a leaf out of the Led Zeppelin book here, as Led on
Led Zeppelin III had dedicated a complete album-side to acoustic rock and Deep Purple seemed game for doing something they wanted as well.
Fireball would be the Deep Purple album that would split opinion amongst Purple fans. I often seen contrasting views on this album over the years, ranging from Deep Purple’s true classic instead of
Machine Head, to the album being too self-indulgent and disjointed. Even the band themselves were at loggerheads over the album, with most of the band especially Blackmore being overtly negative about the album, whilst Ian Gillan has often spoken about the album as being his favourite. I’d conclude that the album is a combination of all of the above, but will add it’s an album for Deep Purple fans, unlike either
In Rock or
Machine Head which could be enjoyed by anybody.
Ian Gillan- Vocals
Ritchie Blackmore- Guitar
Roger Glover- Bass
Jon Lord- Keyboards/Organ
Ian Paice- Drums
Production- Deep Purple
Album
Fireball- The nearest thing to anything from
In Rock, from the sound of an ignition being started, the whole song seems to whizz through at about a million miles an hour, with all the components that make up the band in full flight as well.
No No No- Initially a great song with its funky sounding grooves, but quickly gives way to repetition which dominates its almost 7 minutes, but that funky groove still kills!
Demon’s Eye- One of the best songs on the album, instantly infectious and Gillan just oozes through the song and Blackmore really raunches up the track, criminally left off the original US album version.
Anyone’s Daughter- As for how this song ended up on the album I’ll never know, had this band been Cream or the Who they could have pulled it off.
The Mule- A mostly instrumental track highlighted by Jon Lord, that may rank as one of the bands best instrumental efforts, the song contains some stunning moments.
Fools- Nice melting intro before Gillan kicks in, then the song moves through some amazing instrumental passages, downside overly long as the band flirt with some prog rock here.
No One Came- After the humour of “Anyone’s Daughter” the band yet again load the song up with comical touches, but this time, the song is saved by one of Ritchie Blackmore's amazing riffs that kicks butt throughout the whole song. The US version of the album, instead of “Demon’s Eye” contained the single
Strange Kind of Woman and guess what? It sounds like a single!
Verdict
In many ways the album was risky, the band had hit the big time with
In Rock the previous year and instead of consolidating further with that sound, they decided to make what could be deemed a risky album. Just a year earlier Free had been on top of the world with
Fire and Water, but after putting out its unexpected follow-up in
Highway they came crashing back down to earth! In Deep Purple’s case they took the risk and it paid off, showing us that the band could now pull anything off! So how good is
Fireball with its seven tracks, splitting album fans on one side and album detractors on the other? Without regurgitating all the aspects that I mentioned earlier, I will simply say that the album does lack in the songs department, but that doesn’t always mean the album is going to disappoint. So whenever a band is faced with this dilemma, they tend to go in for a bit of filler and like anything in life some bands do it better than others. Filler in the early 1970s usually meant lengthy jamming sections, tinkering or just plain noodling which was very much the order of the day and some bands actually turned it into a fine art, just think the Grateful Dead here! Deep Purple were automatically adept at playing-out due to their proggy roots and superb musical talent, so when the songs needed to be filled out they were right on the ball and it became rather effortless for them. This was in contrast to say Black Sabbath who had shown us on their debut, that lengthy instrumentation just wasn't their forte. So some of the songs that fall victim to this lengthy indulgence “No No No” and “Fools” can either be seen as a positive or negative by the listener. Certain elements of
Fireball at times, can be seen as being special and indicative of the band, and at times certain song sections rank as the band’s best ever. But these in turn are negatively balanced by the band’s unfocused choices and somewhat dubious attempts at humour. All in all
Fireball still has some amazing singing and instrumentation throughout, making it a firm fan favourite, if not necessarily an essential listen for anybody into ‘heavy music’ at this time.
As a footnote, the
Fireball title track sounds amazingly like "Rock Star" by Canadian hard rock band Warpig, who released this song several months before the Deep Purple effort.