Who Do We Think They Are?
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Who Do We Think We Are (1973) was the fourth and final studio album of the mk.2 Deep Purple line-up of Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice, the band that had recorded the seminal In Rock (1970), Fireball (1971) and Machine Head (1972) albums. At the time of release, Deep Purple were the most successful, top-grossing, stadium-touring heavy rock band on the planet; a position confirmed by the virtuoso performances captured on the double live album, Made in Japan (1972), and the chart success of the single, ‘Smoke on the Water’ (May 1973), which climbed to no. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. The idea for the title of the album came from drummer Ian Paice, who told Melody Maker that the band received ‘piles of passionate letters either violently against or pro-the group’, with the angry one’s typically beginning: “Who do Deep Purple think they are?” (July 1972). This quote appears at the centre of the double-page album artwork, which is made up of a collage of press-clippings and headlines that dramatically contrast the success of the band with the controversy that surrounded it, particularly negative reviews of the band smashing up their equipment as the finale to their live performances. This highlighting of a lack of consensus or critical division of opinion over the musical merits of the band notably appeared three years before the cartoon-illustrated booklet, ‘The Ten Year War’ given away with the Black Sabbath album Technical Ecstasy (1976), which similarly collates negative press clippings.
What this collection seeks to do, in bringing together a host of innovative and internationally recognised Metal Music scholars, is to further the argument that Purple were equally, if not more critically derided, as proponents of ‘heavy metal’ rock. But it was their success, amidst this controversy, in communicating – over the course of a series of ground-breaking studio albums and especially in live performance – with a new, younger rock audience, that helped to define the genre template we now recognise as ‘classic’ heavy metal. Without this success, heavy metal would not have developed in the way that it did nor forged a lasting bond with its audience amidst the controversy which surrounded its rise; a controversy which centred on the way it choose to communicate with this audience, through extremes of volume and dramatic musicianship, particularly live. Indeed, the now legendary, genre-defining phrase ‘everything louder than everything else’ that epitomises the distortion-drenched and over-driven power of hard rock and heavy metal, played through a wall of 200watt Marshall amps, is derived from an on-stage interchange, caught on the Made in Japan album, between Ritchie Blackmore and Ian Gillan.
Published: Sep 1, 2025