Thursday, November 02, 2006
Slaves and Masters... not that bad!
After a bit of a busy spell, I'm back with a new entry. I'm still planning on doing some track-by-track commentary on Machine Head, but in the meantime I thought I'd comment on a DP album that made it into my car's CD player a couple of weeks ago: Slaves and Masters.
If you're bothering to read this blog, you're probably a DP fan and you don't need me to tell you that Slaves and Masters was the only studio release by the Mark V lineup (Ritchie Blackmore, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, Joe Lynn Turner) and is pretty much universally hailed as the band's weakest effort.
I won't disagree with that assessment. Compared to the rest of the band's catalog, I like every other album they did better than Slaves and Masters (although I don't think House of Blue Light is much better). Still, DP at its weakest is better than many other bands.
S&M does feature one bona fide classic in my opinion: "The Cut Runs Deep." Great riff, great keyboard intro, good solos, and the lyrics are good enough. This is a song that definitely deserves to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of the Purple catalog.
There are some other tracks on the album that are quite good: "King of Dreams", "Fire in the Basement", "Truth Hurts", "Breakfast In Bed" (probably would have made a good Paul Rogers/Bad Company tune), "Fortuneteller" and "Wicked Ways." None of these songs may be classics, but they're all enjoyable enough to give a listen every now and again.
The other two tracks I don't particularly care for. "Too Much Is Not Enough" is often slagged by DP fandom. I don't care for the song but I don't think it's nearly as bad as it's made out to be. "Love Conquers All" is not my cup of tea. Frankly, if these two songs were left off the album and replaced by the other two studio tracks of the era, "Slow Down Sister" and "Fire, Ice and Dynamite" I think the album would be reasonably strong. Not a classic, but a solid listen nonetheless.
The bottom line: even though Slaves and Masters may not acheive the heights of DP's finest efforts (or even latter-day Rainbow, for that matter) it's still worth a couple of listens a year.
If you're bothering to read this blog, you're probably a DP fan and you don't need me to tell you that Slaves and Masters was the only studio release by the Mark V lineup (Ritchie Blackmore, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, Joe Lynn Turner) and is pretty much universally hailed as the band's weakest effort.
I won't disagree with that assessment. Compared to the rest of the band's catalog, I like every other album they did better than Slaves and Masters (although I don't think House of Blue Light is much better). Still, DP at its weakest is better than many other bands.
S&M does feature one bona fide classic in my opinion: "The Cut Runs Deep." Great riff, great keyboard intro, good solos, and the lyrics are good enough. This is a song that definitely deserves to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of the Purple catalog.
There are some other tracks on the album that are quite good: "King of Dreams", "Fire in the Basement", "Truth Hurts", "Breakfast In Bed" (probably would have made a good Paul Rogers/Bad Company tune), "Fortuneteller" and "Wicked Ways." None of these songs may be classics, but they're all enjoyable enough to give a listen every now and again.
The other two tracks I don't particularly care for. "Too Much Is Not Enough" is often slagged by DP fandom. I don't care for the song but I don't think it's nearly as bad as it's made out to be. "Love Conquers All" is not my cup of tea. Frankly, if these two songs were left off the album and replaced by the other two studio tracks of the era, "Slow Down Sister" and "Fire, Ice and Dynamite" I think the album would be reasonably strong. Not a classic, but a solid listen nonetheless.
The bottom line: even though Slaves and Masters may not acheive the heights of DP's finest efforts (or even latter-day Rainbow, for that matter) it's still worth a couple of listens a year.
