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#54 1972 Rock Classics: Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper & more

from The Album Years

30m 28s

#54 1972 Rock Classics: Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper & more

This episode examines hard rock and progressive rock albums from 1972, with Tim and the host discussing several landmark releases. Deep Purple's Machine Head and Made in Japan are highlighted as the band's commercial and artistic peak, with Made in Japan praised as the definitive 1970s double live album that captured the band's telepathic interplay and Ritchie Blackmore's unpredictable brilliance. Wishbone Ash's Argus is called their clear masterpiece and a pioneering example of the twin-guitar sound, blending folk, blues, and rock. Black Sabbath's Volume 4 is discussed for its range beyond heavy metal, including the ballad Changes and the acoustic Laguna Sunrise, with Tony Iommi's jazz-influenced chord voicings noted. Hawkwind's Do-Re-Mi, Far So Latido is celebrated for its space rock aesthetic, primal energy, and parallels to krautrock, while the Groundhogs' Who Will Save the World is described as ambitious progressive blues. The conversation also explores how progressive ideals influenced all genres in 1972 and how first-generation hard rock bands drew from jazz, blues, and pop rather than merely copying earlier rock. A listener review of Alice Cooper's School's Out praises its blend of hard rock, glam, and theatrical ambition.

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Speaker 2Let's move on, Tim, to rock hard-ish. Yeah. So we've thrown a few things in here that we're not quite sure how heavy they are. But anyway, another fantastic year for another form of rock music, hard rock. And let's just go through some of these very quickly, and then we can go back and talk about some of them. Deep Purple, Machine Head, and Made in Japan, so arguably the band's commercial and artistic zenith. Wishbone Ash, Argus, definitely the band's peak. Black Sabbath, Volume 4. Hawkwind Do-Re-Mi, Far So Latte Do. Status Quo, Piledriver. Thin Lizzy, Shades of a Blue Orphanage. Alice Cooper, School's Out. Let's go and talk about some of these, Tim. So first of all, I don't know if we've talked, have we talked about Deep Purple on the show before?
Speaker 3I think we've discussed them occasionally, because I really like the very early Rod Evans-led version of the band, and you're not keen.
Speaker 2We haven't talked about, no, I'm not so keen. We haven't talked about Vintage Purple, have we? We have only done it in passing. I think we might have mentioned before. We both think Fireball is our favourite album.
Speaker 3Yeah, great album.
Speaker 2Even though we haven't. Have we done 1971? I don't think we have. No, we haven't. Anyway, but we've mentioned it in passing. But definitely, I mean, in terms of live albums, this is the definitive double 70s live album, and perhaps started a trend in live albums, double live albums that continued throughout the decade. For better and worse, it must be said, some great live double albums. But maybe this is an example of a band that could only really. Capture everything they were about by recording a live performance. Ritchie Blackmore, so flamboyant, so unpredictable, almost feels like he's too tethered in the studio. And I think there's a sense of that in the band generally, too. So Made in Japan kind of features the whole of the Machine Head album. But I think all bar one track they play, or maybe a couple of tracks they play on Made in Japan. And without exception, the version's live on Made in Japan. Or Smoke, the studio version.
Speaker 3Well, I think the thing is that they're another band where every single member is great at what they do. And they make a great collective sound. And I think you're right that while it doesn't reference fusion or jazz or jazz rock, like Zeppelin, they've got a kind of tight but loose, groovy quality that you can relate to funk or jazz. Or even chaos coming. And together, they seem to sort of mess around, but always in a way that comes together in a powerful way.
Speaker 2Almost telepathic. Yeah. I mean, I think that's, this is again about the Stones thing. I think the Stones have that, too. It's almost shambolic, but somehow there's a telepathic connection that just makes this gestalt thing that just sounds like Deep Purple. And of course, a lot of that is the interplay between John Lord on the organ and Ritchie Blackmore on the guitar. But like you say, what a rhythm section.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah. Pacey on the drums.
Speaker 2Glover is great. Incredible. Incredible. And of course, they have.
Speaker 3Gillen is a great friend. Their best vocalist.
Speaker 2I think, you know, I know people love Dave Coverdale. Always a slightly odd, slightly out of place.
Speaker 3Though Burn is a classic.
Speaker 2I think he's a brilliant vocalist, but I think he was always slightly out of place in Deep Purple. It's not my favorite. This is the, this is the lineup everybody talks about when they talk about Purple. Not everybody, but most people come back to this lineup.
Speaker 3Well, I think, you know, this is a period of hard rock that I really like and can kind of sort of understand. Because I think, you know, some of these were kind of session players in the 60s. Of course, it was Jimmy Page, Jean-Paul Jones. So they drew on a lot of different influences from rock, pop, soul, rock and roll and so on. Very naturally. They were just great, as you said, intuitive players. And they'd found a group that matched each other as well, you know.
Speaker 2And they toured for years together and they made three albums. I know you like them, but I think they made three albums where they were just finding, finding themselves. Yeah. And suddenly they were. They arrived in rock 1970. They've got the, the deep, the sort of archetype of the deep purple sound. And this is kind of the peak now of it. Machine head made in Japan. But it's almost, it's interesting you mentioned they've, they're able to draw on all these little things. I wonder if part of that is because they, certainly Richie Blackmore spent years as a session player.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. So he's got all of this in his vocabulary. So he can, he can pull a little country lick out of the air. Yeah. He can pull a little sort of, you know, pop. He's done a Petula Clark session the week before. He can pull. He can pull that out of the air. Yeah. And it all comes into play. And it's all, it's kind of all integrated into his solo style. Completely. Kind of all these little phrases. And you think, where does that come from? And it just sounds like Richie Blackmore.
Speaker 3Well, I think, I think the thing is what's great about the progressive and hard rock music of this era is it's not ossified into cliche. No. So at this point, it's just a great band making great music and defining the territory. By the end of the decade, hard rock, heavy metal. It's a style.
Speaker 2I think you're absolutely right. Because the three, the three biggest bands of certainly the first half of the seventh, the biggest rock bands, Zeppelin, Purple, Sabbath could not be more different. No. From each other. And it's funny because in modern day rock bands, you can hear which band they've been influenced by the most. That's the Sabbath influence. That's the Zeppelin influence. Zeppelin, obviously, were always a little bit more pentatonic. The blue scales. Sabbath had the sort of devil's intervals. Deep Purple somewhere in the middle. But I think that obviously the differentiating factor. Here is the keyboard.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 2Yeah, which rocks as hard as the as the guitar in this band, you know, that fantastic and the tones. I mean, Blackmore's tone on the guitar, John Lord sound, Pacey sound on the drums. It's just all working 100 percent on these on this in this year, 1972, particularly on the Made in Japan.
Speaker 3Yeah. And I think the interesting thing is that with especially Purple and Zeppelin, they could have become anything they wanted. And well, they could have become a symphonic progressive rock band if they'd wanted.
Speaker 2Well, Led Zeppelin almost did on some tracks.
Speaker 3Yeah. Yeah. And they could have become a funk band. Led Zeppelin almost did on some tracks. A great pop rock band. I mean, you know, Black Knight, what a great single as well. I know this precedes this. But, you know, these bands were just kind of firing off ideas, you know, not as many ideas as Roxy Music on Roxy Music. But they had a lot to draw on.
Speaker 2Wishbone Ash August. I mentioned when I was listening. Yes, some of these that it's it's kind of the album that they reached a peak on. It's such a peak in their castle. I mean, I like Wishbone Ash. I like the first album very much. But this album is. There are some bands where they have a whole catalog and one album clearly, you know, we talk about Nick Drake. You can't pick between those three albums. Yeah. Zeppelin is very hard for me anyway. Yeah. Very hard for me to pick. Is it presence? Is it physical graffiti? Is it has the holy? Is it for you know, they're all brilliant Sabbath. Is it the first time? Is it paranoid? Is it my wishbone ash August? And it's very hard to find anybody that doesn't think that's clearly so I like just testing. I quite like some of the other albums. I quite like some of their albums. There's the rub is a good record. The first album is good. But August is their masterpiece and very clearly their masterpiece. It's interesting, isn't it? Because this is a band that have got a little bit, perhaps of what we were talking about, the folk English folk tradition in their music as well. Pastoral acoustic guitars in their music, but they're also pioneering the twin guitar thing, aren't they? So whereas all of the other bands had a single guitar player that kind of defines their sound, Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin, Richie Blackmore and Deep Purple, Tony Iommi and Black Sabbath here, the guitar, the sound of the band is defined by the way the two guitar players interact. This is the beginning of the kind of twin lead thing. Then there's he also made an album this year, but long before they had to get up.
Speaker 3Well, I think with. I think it's one of the it's got the anti Love Beach effect in the sense.
Speaker 2The anti Love Beach effect. Yeah, I'm curious about what that is.
Speaker 3Well, the Love Beach, that cover, no matter what album was in that cover was going to be doomed for eternity. Whereas actually August, what an amazing sleeve. You know, this is again like Bear Trees, one of the sleeves of the year. And it's almost like anything that's in that automatically has a sense of mystique because of the great hypnosis. I think it was.
Speaker 2Artwork. So you say that, Tim, but I can think of lots of albums that we love and that lots of people love that have terrible. Oh, it's true.
Speaker 3Blue Nose Hats, Blue Nose Hats, Pet Sounds. I'm going with Tarkus. What a cover. And what is curious about this album is that whereas a lot of artists are kind of, you know, you say probably the twin guitar is the one thing that hints at certain futures for music. But generally speaking, I'm hearing a big influence from Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac. I think, yes, really strong. Early Fleetwood Mac influence. And I think there's a Fairport Convention influence. Yeah, for sure. And it's almost like a hybrid of kind of folk rock, blues rock and forming it into something for whatever reason with this album, partly due to the cover. I'm putting it down to as well, partly due to tracks like King Will Come, where they do build a mystique with a sort of slow build music. It's yeah, it's their definitive statement. Did they suffer? There's almost an enigma attached to it.
Speaker 2Did they suffer a bit? suffer a bit by not having a great vocalist the vocals are fine aren't they but they're fine to me that i think that they they're just fine i
Speaker 3think they serve the purpose they serve
Speaker 2the purpose yeah
Speaker 3whereas even going on to bear trees if they'd have had danny kirwan yes this might have notched up yeah two or three levels higher yeah um and that's not to criticize the singing because it's all sweet it does the job it's all good and obviously the guitar playing there's a beautiful sound to the guitars i mean that's the thing that some of this album sounds very pristine and again quite sparse they're not afraid of space no it's very organic
Speaker 2music no it's very organic they played it live pretty much the way they performed it in the studio at least the tracks they played live i mean they played blowing free i think every single gig they ever did after this but
Speaker 3yeah you know had they had danny kirwan or lindsey mcveigh on vocals lindsey mcveigh it might have been a different thing everyone could
Speaker 2have benefited from having lindsey mcveigh on well i think so yeah yeah sabs black sabbath volume four what's your favorite black sabbath album it's hard isn't it because it's like i i know what mine is i bet i know too go on sabotage sabotage i knew it would be it's the most prog rock is it of course completely two 10 minute long tracks no i like
Speaker 3technical ecstasy and never say die as well
Speaker 2underrated i love also very proggy i love sabotage for me the first album i love
Speaker 3the first album
Speaker 2it's so well it's the archetype for so much isn't it
Speaker 3i think the first two albums have as well they've got that kind of loose organic feel that is in deep purple and led zeppelin but completely different because the harmonies as you say very different the chords pass even the simplicity of the music as well with black sabbath and obviously their lyrical theme is very different and i think the first two albums have that kind of but i really like that first album in particular and i think paranoid takes a couple of those ideas further you can hear that they're actually steeped in experimental psychedelia as much as anything actually with sabbath at times can you i'm not sure i
Speaker 2hear that i mean i i just i think that they had a gag and once they discovered that gag it was perfect the kind of dennis wheatley lyrical content the the devil's interval the the use of the flattened fifth in the music i mean that where would heavy metal be today without that sure and they kind of ran with it and it's one of those things where you start talking about black sabbath and you say oh yeah the first album well actually the first two no actually the first three no it's the first four no it's the first five because they are creating the the vocabulary of metal music but yeah and again you know
Speaker 3and it is a formula and
Speaker 2it is a and ozzy's voice is this extraordinary strange unique thing totally that just was perfect well he's
Speaker 3as unique as ferry and bowie in his own way because he's a he's got a good voice but he's almost like a distinctive non-singer in some ways and it's all the better for it i mean i hear a kind of a nasal john lennon quality in his voice
Speaker 2sometimes but he's got yeah but he's he pitches really well and he's got this beautiful melody yeah yeah i can't you
Speaker 3know i think he's a keep again once more every component of black sabbath is what makes it a great band but i mean let's
Speaker 2look at this album this is an album that own that not only has things like supernaut you know quintessential sabbath you know riffage yeah it also has changes yeah it has laguna sunrise on its beautiful acoustic guitar changes is a
Speaker 3great mor ballad you
Speaker 2know absolutely absolutely yeah so although they are seen as the godfathers of modern metal there was so much more to them so much again
Speaker 3this is why i bring it back to me because i think it's a great album i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and i think it's a great album and um as i said to me it kind of comes together on sabbath bloody sabbath and then sabotage is the killer i love the excess of the arrangements on that album and of course symptom of the universe that's for me the definitive black sabbath track
Speaker 2definitive black sabbath riff yeah well actually black sabbath black sabbath is the definitive black sabbath but yeah uh in terms of the sort of modern metal sound yeah yeah but you know
Speaker 3this does things yeah that metal bands by 1979 are not doing not capable of
Speaker 2doing to be fair and i think you know interestingly you know when you listen to tony iommi's guitar style there's a lot of very interesting chord voicings that have come from jazz yeah and and come from musical forms that have nothing to do with heavy rock and it's interesting because we talked about about jimmy page in the same way we talk about uh we talk about uh richie blackmore in the same way and i think we interesting we talked about this in relation to progressive rock on a previous episode i remember that each generation becomes slightly more reductive yes so the first generation is always the more interesting because they're not simply influenced by what they sound like yeah they're drawing on all these different things and creating a new hybrid the second generation by definition is reductive because it's merely influenced by this already reductive form of influences so they're influenced by the people that created the blueprint rather than creating the blueprint themselves if that doesn't sound too convoluted as an argument and the same i think is very much true of heavy rock isn't it the modern heavy rock is basically cut from the cloth of metallica sabbath iron maiden whereas original heavy rock came from jazz blues whatever emma funk
Speaker 3classical music but i am a great distinctive player but i think wasn't that attributed partly because didn't he have yeah in a factory accident and i'm not sure whether he did draw on django reinhold but django rhino of course who famously had i think you know digits severely impaired by a fire in his caravan developed his unique style through using his limitations and i think iomi also maybe using this as inspiration developed a unique style of playing the guitar and one of the great iomi stories of course is that he was in jethro tull very briefly yeah in
Speaker 2fact he's in rock and roll yeah yeah the ronald stone's film so talking about this kind of mixture of influences apparently coming from nowhere and creating some new hybrid hawkwind yeah do reimi far so latido one of my favorite bands of all time um nominally space rock again i think a bit like sabbath they found a gag early on and it was to tap into the kind of sci-fi you know bob calvert came up with a lot of those lyrics early on also the barney bubbles artwork yeah tapping into a lot of sci-fi and of course sci-fi was very big at the time yeah you know people were fascinated by michael moore was
Speaker 3involved with him at some point michael
Speaker 2moore was involved yeah absolutely um so tapping into that kind of fascination people had with space travel we just landed on the moon for the first time a few years earlier it's very much capturing the zeitgeist of people's fascination with space um and there's something i love about hawkwind that also you talked about the stooges earlier and the velvet underground they've got that primitivism as well about them haven't they they've got that punk wrong as a punk rock aesthetic even though the music in conception is as grand and pretentious as anything that pink floyd are doing it doesn't have the same degree of musicianship but it's got a lot of the same tropes a lot of the same spacey imagery the artwork is always very elaborate the songs can be quite long the musicianship is much more limited but i think that in a sense becomes in a perhaps in the same way you know that we talk about you know being a non-musician about about being about it being the ideas not the execution there's a lot of that going on in hawkwind too isn't
Speaker 3there there is and i think one other kind of unacknowledged element is that there's a parallel between hawkwind and kraut rock yes in their relentlessness i think and you're right in and maybe in their case it's because of musical limitations but there is a relentless in which it follows one idea through and through and through and through repetition totally repetition
Speaker 2nothing clever just repetition
Speaker 3but really imaginative sonically the use of synth textures and not afraid again you know this is not just a kind of bombardment because there are always lovely kind of acoustic ballads that come out of this or ambient interludes even at this stage you know in search of space in search of music in search of music in search of music in search of space there are levels to this music and in fact one of the sweetest tracks is written by lemmy and sung by lemmy yeah which is quite peculiar you know lemmy who then goes on obviously to motorhead later what's great about hawkwind is you can see why somebody who loves progressive rock loves their ambition and their generic blurring of boundaries how somebody who is a punk rocker finds a total energy and focus of rhythmic purpose yeah there's a kind of
Speaker 2primal non-musician there is a primal energy to it yeah so
Speaker 3they can kind of appeal on on many different levels and i think that you know from in search of space really right through the 70s they changed as well because you know by the mid 70s they're making slightly more composed melatron dominated albums by the time calvert rejoined in the late 70s they're making amazing proto post-punk albums yeah
Speaker 2absolutely i absolutely adore hawkwind uh this album is part of a continuum of albums again i would say the album before this in search of space the one after the hall of the mountain grill slightly better for me yeah but don't worry me some has some of their definitives at brainstorm space is deep time we left the world today lord of light brilliant brilliant songs and there's a sense of
Speaker 3musicians getting lost in that sound you know one of the things we were talking about earlier about whether it's mark holman or nick drake being lost in their own world but then bands like deep purple being lost that's and and of course the crowd rockers you know you've got this with hawkwind that they are lost in this blur yes sound well i think
Speaker 2so i was going to use the word otherness again a word i use quite often to be fair but i think it applies here equally there's something about hawkwind that defies analysis just the sound is it has this strange which kind of immediate you know straight away that kind of gels in with the whole space concept it sounds like music beaming in from another cosmos yeah it's a very very surreal soup kind of a kind of again gestalt thing this kind of soup of sound and if you analyze it too closely i mean i've i did remix a couple of their albums and it's a mistake to go in and listen to things in solo because it's the musicianship is not great and even some of the recording quality is not great in fact do re mi is an album i would dearly have loved to remix the master tapes apparently i'm missing but uh maltractors are missing because it's quite lo-fi and i think it could sound better but at the same time i'm also saying to myself but you might spoil what's special about it by cleaning it up too much there's an
Speaker 3accidental quality and you're right there is a very soupy quality and i think it's a very soupy quality and i think it's a very soupy quality and i think it's a very soupy quality and i think it's a very soupy quality about this music and it also you know it has comparisons with krautrock it has comparisons with post-rock as well i think in some
Speaker 2ways and obviously a big influence on again we put it in the heavy rock category there is a big influence on modern metal and stuff as well yeah interesting you mentioned the connection to baz at noi andrew lauder from united artists these are all bands he signed he signed rockwind he signed noi he signed he signed can he signed amon duel too so actually um he also signed brinsley schwartz and a few other british bands but in terms of the bands we kind of remember as being on united artists it's hawkwind and the krautrock bands yeah they are the bands we most remember are being on united artists and the groundhogs actually as well groundhogs made two albums this year who will save the world and hogwash are you familiar with groundhogs tim yeah i really like them i really like them they're again they're quite odd quite a unique kind i don't i don't even know where to begin to describe them so you have a go tim well
Speaker 3i think that they're a band who come out of the blues boom like fleetwood mac and quite a number of others and clearly there are strong blues influences so it's like a band who haven't jettisoned their influences but they've totally embraced the ambitious progressive idea that's floating in the air in 1972 so these are almost like progressive blues albums because they're really ambitious at times you know there's a use of melatron i think he's a very early adopter of guitar synths as well i think tony mcfee was always
Speaker 2fascinated by by technology yeah and i love that that
Speaker 3he's kind of he's as rooted to robert johnson as he is trying to find the future of music yeah and um it is quite raw quite uncompromising quite unpretentious but yeah they go off at some wild tangents and i think i'd probably go for who will they're really interesting i love
Speaker 2split the album from the year before cherry red that track is just it's just such a classic yeah we're great but isn't
Speaker 3it you know we're talking about the progressive era you know so if babbick and lee is what happens when a folk artist you know a folk artist embraces rock and progressive this is what happens when a blues artist embraces progressive so now
Speaker 2we've talked about this before i think in fact you brought it up a thing on a previous episode that there's sometimes in certain eras there is a prevailing spirit that comes from one direction that affects every genre maybe we talked about it in the late 70s how punk and new way was kind of affecting everything whether directly and indirectly is it fair to say in 1972 progressive ideals are affecting everything from soul music to heavy rock music to folk music
Speaker 3as it did you know later as well i think you know whether by the time you get to 76 and people like stevie wonder are embracing it you know i think yeah it's in the air there are ideas in the air but to me what's kind of interesting is you know i think it's in the air there are ideas in the air but to me what's kind of interesting is i guess things like babbick and lee and who will save the world they're almost like these stillborn directions these fascinating offshoots that never properly took off as genres but could equally have taken off because they're very strong records you know but yeah you're right i think there is you know in 72 um although you know people like sinatra i think he has his comeback album 73 actually but people like sinatra had always thought in conceptual terms yeah the country artists are thinking in conceptual terms and more ambitious song cycles so there is something in the air i'd say it's kind of post-psychedelic but equally there's that return to rock and roll
Speaker 2isn't there i think we talked about on the psychedelic episode we talked about how psychedelia was kind of indirectly affecting yeah almost everything else everything else almost everything yeah yeah from country artists to soul artists to funkers there's a little bit of psych creeping in and maybe that's true this year too there's a little bit of progressive sensibility where we're in serious albums band you know longer long longer more extended pieces more use of technology more use of the studio as a kind of instrument for processing also wanting to
Speaker 3push themselves not relying on reputation and so on
Speaker 2so a few other heavy rock comes from this quo pile driver love love the whole series of 70s quo albums pile driver paper plane great track big fat mama great track roadhouse blues one of the best quo albums what can you say about quotes in your fan not really thin lizzy shades of a blue orphanage was that their first album second second album uh they're quite interesting those earlier i haven't heard them
Speaker 3for a while but i love them well they are one of the three twin leads isn't it yeah
Speaker 2just the one guitar eric bell at the time
Speaker 3yeah and the title track is something like eight minutes long oh it must be good um has a melatron it must be good
Speaker 2it's cloder on one of these
Speaker 3cloder plays melatron on it yeah um i think it's brilliant i mean i think i love the first two thin lizzy albums this might be my favorite um i think it's brilliant i mean i think i love the first two thin lizzy albums this might be my favorite um i think it's brilliant i mean i think i love the first two thin lizzy albums this might be my because again this is where where do they go they're coming out of folk as much as they're coming out of hard rock so you might be able to hear van morrison peter green all sorts of things in the background and it's a kind of a stew of unusual influences put together in quite an ambitious way and you don't know how they're going to come out at this point you don't know where lizzy are going to go although today and neither today but linnet still got his great voice bell's a really interesting guitarist i really like this period partly because there's something amorphous and undecided and they come into my category of um the underrated you know my my league of the underrated where if thin lizzy had only done these first two albums we'd still be talking about this great lost irish band what the hell happened right they could have been huge because it's there the blueprint for greatness i think other albums
Speaker 2we've got in this category free at last zz top rio grand mud sensational alex harvey band framed alice cooper schools apparently we've got a review a listener review of alice cooper schools out so let's let the listener review this one here we
Speaker 4go hello my name is zachary nathanson and my choice for 1972 is alice cooper's 1972 classic schools out the original lineup of the band brought in elements of letter bernstein glam proto-punk a clockwork orange and life after graduating alice was on top during that time frame and what an album it was to follow up with the previous release killer it is hard rock at its finest fantastic
Speaker 2review nothing to add to that too we've got anything to add to that no i think he's right
Speaker 3and i think what again i i mean i really love the production on those albums and the ambition and the fact that alice cooper again he's not a hard rock comic book character that people perceive him you know you do get things from west side story you do get great beatles pop melodies you do get a great hard rock band and of course they were signed originally i think to zapper or the label that was run by zapper's manager weren't they heard cohen i think they're actually a really interesting band with a great knack for killer choruses but there's always ambition and of course you know alice cooper did a number of sort of conceptually oriented works after this you know he's a little like gabriel a little like bowie he's a clever guy playing characters but making great music through playing characters and i think it was bob ezrin's along with you know berlin lou reed he did around this time as well you know some of his early productions with uh with cooper i love bob ezrin's work on this and it's why he came to attention okay
Speaker 2there we go folks that's tim having nothing to add okay
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Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. The episode focuses on hard rock and progressive rock albums released in 1972, including Deep Purple's Machine Head and Made in Japan, Wishbone Ash's Argus, Black Sabbath's Volume 4, Hawkwind's Do-Re-Mi, Status Quo's Piledriver, Thin Lizzy's Shades of a Blue Orphanage, Alice Cooper's School's Out, and Groundhogs' Who Will Save the World.
  2. Deep Purple's Made in Japan is celebrated as the definitive 1970s double live album, capturing the band's telepathic interplay and the flamboyant unpredictability of Ritchie Blackmore.
  3. Wishbone Ash's Argus is described as the band's clear masterpiece, notable for pioneering the twin-guitar sound and blending folk, blues, and rock influences.
  4. Black Sabbath's Volume 4 showcases the band's range beyond heavy metal, including tracks like Supernaut, Changes, and Laguna Sunrise, with Tony Iommi's jazz-influenced chord voicings highlighted.
  5. Hawkwind's Do-Re-Mi, Far So Latido is praised for its space rock aesthetic, primal energy, and parallels to krautrock and post-rock, with Lemmy contributing a notably sweet track.
  6. The Groundhogs' Who Will Save the World is described as progressive blues, with Tony McPhee embracing technology and ambitious arrangements.
  7. The episode discusses how progressive ideals in 1972 influenced all genres, and how first-generation hard rock bands drew from jazz, blues, and pop rather than merely copying earlier rock.
  8. A listener review of Alice Cooper's School's Out is included, praising its blend of hard rock, glam, Leonard Bernstein, and A Clockwork Orange influences.

Summary:

This episode examines hard rock and progressive rock albums from 1972, with Tim and the host discussing several landmark releases. Deep Purple's Machine Head and Made in Japan are highlighted as the band's commercial and artistic peak, with Made in Japan praised as the definitive 1970s double live album that captured the band's telepathic interplay and Ritchie Blackmore's unpredictable brilliance. Wishbone Ash's Argus is called their clear masterpiece and a pioneering example of the twin-guitar sound, blending folk, blues, and rock.

Black Sabbath's Volume 4 is discussed for its range beyond heavy metal, including the ballad Changes and the acoustic Laguna Sunrise, with Tony Iommi's jazz-influenced chord voicings noted. Hawkwind's Do-Re-Mi, Far So Latido is celebrated for its space rock aesthetic, primal energy, and parallels to krautrock, while the Groundhogs' Who Will Save the World is described as ambitious progressive blues. The conversation also explores how progressive ideals influenced all genres in 1972 and how first-generation hard rock bands drew from jazz, blues, and pop rather than merely copying earlier rock.

A listener review of Alice Cooper's School's Out praises its blend of hard rock, glam, and theatrical ambition.

FAQs

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It is considered the definitive double live album of the 1970s and arguably Deep Purple's commercial and artistic peak. It captures the band's flamboyant and unpredictable live energy, especially Ritchie Blackmore's playing.

The classic lineup with Ian Gillan on vocals, Ritchie Blackmore on guitar, Jon Lord on organ, Roger Glover on bass, and Ian Paice on drums. Most people consider this the definitive Deep Purple lineup.

It is clearly Wishbone Ash's masterpiece and features pioneering twin-guitar interplay. The album blends folk, blues rock, and pastoral acoustic elements with a strong early Fleetwood Mac influence.

It includes quintessential Sabbath riffage like 'Supernaut' as well as softer tracks like 'Changes' and 'Laguna Sunrise.' The album shows the band's range beyond being just the godfathers of metal.

It is a space rock album that taps into sci-fi themes and the zeitgeist of space fascination. It features a primal, repetitive energy similar to krautrock and includes the Lemmy-written and sung track 'Silver Machine.'

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