STONE COLD CRAZY
DEEP PURPLE IN ROCK is many things, but subtle is not one of them. Within literally seconds of listening to it, you’re blasted by Ian Paice’s frantic, slippery drums, Jon Lord’s braying organ and, of course, Ritchie Blackmore’s indelible guitar riffing and loopy tremolo flourishes. Along the way, singer Ian Gillan references and rearranges rock’s DNA (“‘Good golly!’ said little Miss Molly / When she was rocking in the house of blue light!”), punctuating his Little Richard and Elvis Presley–inspired lyrics with ridiculously piercing and forceful shrieks and wails. For that matter, the frenzied rhythm, developed by bassist Roger Glover, emulates Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire.” From there, we’re through two verses and choruses and on to bearing witness to a classic Lord–Blackmore organ-guitar battle. And we’re only a minute into the record.
The song we’re listening to is called “Speed King,” and it’s a wild and breathless launch to In Rock. It’s also completely in line with what ensues over the next 40 minutes or so. From the snaky, metallized grind of “Bloodsucker” to the breakneck gallop of “Flight of the Rat,” the monolithic guitar-organ groove of “Into the Fire” and the thundering “Hard Lovin’ Man,” the album is a relentless sonic juggernaut, its massive and over-the-top sound reflected in both the album title and the Mount Rushmore–aping cover art. In fact, the only moment where Purple drive the music with anything less than the pedal fully floored is the 10-minute epic “Child in Time.” And given the fact that Gillan refuses to sing this one onstage anymore due to the practically inhuman vocal demands (there’s also an explosive, elongated Blackmore solo that many consider one of his best), this might be the most intense track of all.
“If it’s not dramatic or exciting, it has no place on this album,” Blackmore once said of In Rock, and we’d be loath to disagree. There’s nary a moment on the record that isn’t a full-on white-knuckled experience. But we’d also add the word heavy to the first part of Blackmore’s statement. Because even today, 50 years after its original release, In Rock is a testament to just how intense (and, per Ritchie, dramatic and exciting) guitar-based rock and roll can be. A half-century ago? It sounded positively revolutionary.
The album arrived at a turning point in popular music culture. The ’60s were,
