For some bizarre reason, Doof elected to embed the milder, tamer studio version of Deep Purple’s crowning achievement, “Highway Star.” This inexplicable lapse has forced my hand; there’s nothing else for it but to showcase the best-EVAR version, from the greatest live album in rock ’n’ roll history: the incomparable, nigh-flawless Made In Japan.
I find this video double-plus awesome because the guy had gumption enoughl to take a stab at syncing up the Made In Japan audio track with video footage from the Live In Copenhagen DVD, which he did a bang-up job of too, IMHO. Regarding the Made In Japan album, what’s there to say? It still brings classic 70s hard-rock aficionados nearly to tears of joy with every successive listen. No overdubs whatsoever; recorded on a half-assed, el cheapo recording/mixing lashup (8 track? Dude, SRSLY?); an apathetic, indifferent attitude towards the project from the band members—who could possibly expect anything remotely good to come of this incipient disaster?
Then the album dropped, and a waiting world hardly even knew what hit it. Check it:
The band had mixed feelings about the album. Gillan was critical of his own performance, yet impressed with the quality of the recording, while Lord listed it as his favourite Deep Purple album, saying, “The band was at the height of its powers. That album was the epitome of what we stood for in those days.” “It’s still probably the best live rock ‘n’ roll album ever made,” declared Paice, who suggested that the shows were some of the group’s best. “And that’s putting everything Led Zeppelin have done, anything Black Sabbath may have done, Bad Company, Free… As a tour de force of innovation and living on the edge and great playing with a fantastic sound, nothing comes close.”
The response from critics was favourable. Rolling Stone’s Jon Tiven wrote that “Made in Japan is Purple’s definitive metal monster, a spark-filled execution … Deep Purple can still cut the mustard in concert”. Subsequently, a 2012 readers’ poll in the magazine declared the album to be the sixth best live album of all time, adding the band have performed “countless shows since in countless permutations, but they’ve never sounded quite this perfect.”
Recent reviews have been equally positive. AllMusic’s William Ruhlmann considered the album to be “a definitive treatment of the band’s catalog and its most impressive album”. Rock author Daniel Bukszpan claimed the album is “widely acknowledged as one of the greatest live albums of all time”. Goldmine magazine said the album “defined Deep Purple even as it redefined the concept of the live album.” Deep Purple author Dave Thompson wrote “the standing of Deep Purple’s first (and finest) live album had scarcely diminished in the quarter-century since its release”.
Myself, I bought …Japan at my uncle’s drugstore in 1974, when I was all of 14 years old. I loved it then, I still love it now, and across all the intervening decades (!) have neither stopped playing it nor gotten tired of hearing it. Drop the needle anywhere you like, you won’t be disappointed; there’s not a dud song or performance to be found. Incredibly, the allocated recording budget for D-Purp’s magnum opus was a measly $3,000, which trifling sum translated to £49,995 as of 2023.
As time rolled ever on, a major label would blandly shell out a few hundred G’s just to have an upper-tier band hump their gear into the tracking room without so much as batting an eyelash. Now, with the lightning-fast proliferation of PCs, digital recording, and affordable home-studio equipment, the music-biz landscape has undergone yet another radical shift.
As for Made In Japan, all in all it’s pretty dang impressive for an album that still enjoys brisk sales today, as it has throughout the 50-plus years since its initial release. Looked at from that angle, “impressive” doesn’t even BEGUN to cover it, wouldn’tcha say?
- Entries
As previously mentioned, I am not musically inclined, which for me means that I generally have little knowledge of bands, band members, or ability to play any instruments.
I do like to listen however. Deep Purple is one I remember quite well. It was 1969 and I was a 16 year old at the beach. Somebody had a Deep Purple album, and I’m pretty sure the album name was “Deep Purple” and a new release. Must have been late June of 1969. I do recall that a few weeks later man would walk on the moon. I really liked the album, we must have played it day and night when we were around the beach house.
Fast forward to a few years ago when I *discovered* that the new to me music that I like rather well was Ritchie Blackmore one of the Deep Purple members.
Small world. I recall there was another band I liked, The Searchers, and one of their cast was somehow involved in DP. I was just a little kid listening to songs by the Searchers on the radio in the very early 60’s.
Yeah, that’s my favorite song on the album, and that album is on my music player still today. I bought my copy in early 1974 also. I was 16, had just discovered reefer, and had a little hottie girlfriend.
Life was so very good.
Since the Statute Of Limitations has now passed for crimes committed in 1974, I confess that although I paid for the Deep Purple double album, I also walked out of the J. M. Fields store in Charleston, SC that day with “Houses Of The Holy” tucked away in the back game pouch of my Dad’s hunting coat, which I had appropriated as mine.
On Youtube, there are any number of guitar players, male and female, who do that time-honored guitar solo from that song.
Speaking of the greatest live album in history, their treatment of “Lazy” is also fantastic. If you listen to this album, you will be treated to what must be the most rock and roll sentence ever :
“Can we have everything louder than everything else.”.