Top 10 Deep Purple Songs with the Most Interesting Elements

The Top Ten
1 Child In Time

This song is known for Ian Gillan screams towards the end. Insanely good screams from a true master.

This song definitely contains one of the vocal performances ever. Sadly Ian Gillan can’t reach those high notes anymore

2 Pictures of Home

There are 5 solos on 4 different instruments - guitar, keyboards, bass, drums. Ritchie Blackmore played 2 guitar solos and the song has 5 solos. Bass solos were very rare in the early 70s (not that currently you hear bass solos on every song).

3 Smoke On the Water

Without a doubt, the most interesting element is the riff.

4 Highway Star
5 Knocking at Your Back Door

The intro is so funny and unique - the sounds are created by the band on musical instruments.

6 The Mule

A very interesting drum beat - it's complex and almost has melody. Kinda progressive stuff here from Ian Paice.

7 Hard Lovin' Man

Screams are awesome as well as the gallops - gallops became an important element of metal music, popularized later by Iron Maiden. Screams also became a metal feature.

8 Hell to Pay
9 King of Dreams

It's the intro with the creepy sounds.

10 Rat Bat Blue
The Contenders
11 Burn

Many things are interesting here but I would point out that a sustain of about 8 seconds wasn't very common in rock music in the early 70s and was exceptional. You can hear it on the word “burn” and have to agree that it's very well performed (vocals from David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes). Currently metal singers apply longer sustains but I think this element of metal singing also started from Deep Purple (Ozzy has no such things).

12 Concerto for Group and Orchestra: II. Part 1 - Andante
13 Nothing at All
14 The Gypsy
15 Love Conquers All

The most interesting thing is the classical instrumentation on some sections (this song is a ballad).

16 April

Its length - 12:10 minutes. Hard to believe this epic and progressive stuff was released in 1969! I think this is their most beautiful song.

17 In the Hall of the Mountain King - Deep Purple
18 Fireball

It is the double bass drumming - Ian Paice made it so popular that now almost every metal band uses a double bass drum.

19 Perfect Strangers

This is a song with no solo. Deep Purple were among the first bands to play 2 and more solos in one song but not here. Besides, Ritchie Blackmore is one of the greatest soloists in rock/metal music but he decided to skip the solo. He said this is his favorite Deep Purple song. I agree the song is great and is probably one of their top 3 songs. I guess writing a heavy song with no solo was part of the Deep Purple experiments. I know about 20 great metal songs with no solos that were created after Perfect Strangers (I made a list "Top 10 Greatest Metal Songs With No Guitar Solo").

20 Hungry Daze
21 Mistreated

This demonic riff.

22 Bloodsucker

The screams are awesome and funny.

23 Black Night
24 The Cut Runs Deep
25 Sun Goes Down
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