There's no doubt Deep Purple was one of the 70's premiere hard rock bands. Just look at some of the facts: their live album Made in Japan consistently ranks near the top of critics' lists of all time greatest live rock albums. They once held the record for World's Loudest Band, and of course, they wrote "Smoke On the Water," which opens with the most recognizable heavy rock guitar riff ever. Yes, they're often acknowledged as giants in their genre, but even nowadays there never seems to be much critical discussion of their work.

I think at least part of the reason why is that for many years there weren't a lot of easily available copies of outtakes and rarities, which often offer another perspective from which to take the measure of an artist. This was to have been rectified by the Rhino reissues which came out about ten years ago. However, despite being loaded up with b-sides, outtakes, alternate mixes, and studio snippets, I'm of the impression they failed to catch on with the general public or even most rock fans. It seems that only hardcore DP fans gave them more than a passing glance.

Turns out there's a reason: the reissues don't really add much to the legend. I thought in particular, the four studio albums made by the Mark II version of the band would have been revealing, but they aren't. In Rock, Fireball, Machine Head, and Who Do We Think We Are make up the crown jewels in the DP canon, so one would think in their expanded  formats there would be some additional gems brought to light. Well, bassist Roger Glover remixes many tracks, and they do sound somewhat nicer, but you'd have to be paying close attention to notice much difference. And the b-sides and outtakes have been relegated to their proper status in also-ran limbo.

So why bother at all? Simply this: the original albums sound better in context; or, in other words, It's nice to know that they picked the best songs first time around. Machine Head contains the "Smoke" riff and as well, has the most solid and commercial sonic production. It tends to overshadow its harder rocking sibling In Rock, which for my money was a better album. Fireball has its moments but it always felt sloppy overall to me. Who Do We think We Are, always considered to be the weak link here, I thought was solid and on par with its predecessor Machine Head - both a little slicker and more commercial than I'd usually care to chose for my listening pleasure, but part of my hard rock heritage just the same.

So, if you've the time and inclination, track these down in either their original format or their expanded format (if you've the cash), and hear another great band from back in the days when dinosaurs ruled the earth. Earplugs optional.