DEEPEST PURPLE - THE VERY BEST OF DEEP PURPLE

In these Purpleless times, any reason to cash in was good, I suppose. A new generation of youngsters was there and didn't know the Deep. So, let's release a compilation! I guess this was the marketing strategy. And it was extremely successful : this one will reach Nr 1 (yes : number one) in the UK charts ! In the midst of the electro-pop and AOR/FM era it is not a bad score, is it ?

In terms of compilation, it is the second one of the genre for Purple (I do not consider "Powerhouse" as a compilation), which is not too much (to be honest, one has to know that in those prehistoric times, compilations were not as famous as now).

So, the first one was "24 Carat Purple" in 1975 (reaching the fourteenth spot in the UK). If you except "Never Before" each single track of it is represented again in "The Deepest Purple" ! This is actually a recompilation of a compilation : adding "Woman From Tokyo", "Burn" and "Stormbringer" to the original one.

The concept is the following : you get both of their UK hit-singles (Mark II) : "Black Night" (Nr. 2) and "Strange Kind Of Woman" (Nr. 8), you take the opener of each album from "In Rock" till "Stormbringer" and you add two Purple anthems : "Child In Time" & "Smoke On the water". If you don't know what to do next, just throw in two average tracks at random : "Space Truckin" and "Demon's Eye". There you go ! You get your Nr. 1 hit compilation ! They are very clever, aren't they ?

This strategy has been extended to the very limit during the last twelve years (I guess only Yes did it so "well", altough ELO is also "great" in this excercise).

The track list is fabulous (except two as mentioned). I rated "24 Carat" with four stars. So, this one is musically also worth the same rating (but instead of fooling no one, they damn fool the fans).