The Very Best of Deep Purple [Best of, Original recording remastered]

The Very Best Of Deep Purple (Warner Archives/Rhino) collects 15 of Purples' hardest hitting tunes from the various incarnations of the band from the very first LP Shades Of Deep Purple in 1968 to Perfect Strangers in 1984. These songs are culled from the huge Purple box set Shades 1968-1998 (Warner Archives/Rhino) and all are digitally remastered and are FIREBALLS! All songs are the original long album versions except "Kentucky Woman" that is the single version & "Speed King" which is the U.S. Deep Purple In Rock album version and is a shorter version than the release on the U.K. album. All the hits are here "Smoke On The Water," "Hush," "Woman From Tokyo" & "Demon's Eye" to name a few. The booklet has some nice pictures, U.S. album discography and song by song info by 2 DP archivists. Play this LOUD & BURN! A+.

Hush: Deep Purple's first hit released in the summer of '68 hitting the Top 5 on the American Billboard charts but this song isn't one of my favorites, it's a good psychedelic song but it isn't a great Deep Purple song. 4/5

Kentucky Woman: Despite the fact that this is only the single version but I think that this is a great song to listen to and it's one of the few remakes that I actually like better, that's something that I don't say too often, sadly for vocalist Rod Evans he left within a year later after recording this song. 5/5

Black Night: I don't know which album this song was off of but it's a really cool song, wish that it can be a little longer but this is the song that we get to hear Ian Gillan sing and hear Roger Glover play. 5/5

Speed King: Ian Gillan can really sing on this song and it rocks! 5/5

Child in Time: This is a good song and it's hard to believe that it's over 10 minutes long although it doesn't seem like it, believe it or not, they actually used the opening riffs from It's a Beautiful Day's Bombay Calling. 5/5

Strange Kind of Woman: I love this song and it's probably my favorite Deep Purple song from the pre-Machine Head albums, good catchy chorus. 5/5

Fireball: Great organ riffs by keyboardist Jon Lord, this song reminds me of the washing machine! 5/5

Demon's Eye: Although this song has a great chorus but this song isn't one of my all time favorites, it's still good. 4/5

Highway Star: When I first heard of this song on Dazed and Confused, I used to think that it was called Highway Storm, ain't that funny or what, this song is about fast cars. 5/5

Smoke on the Water: Despite how much airplay this song gets, this song has one of the best riffs in hard rock history, and this is also Deep Purple's most famous song. 5/5

Space Truckin': Another minor hit off of Machine Head but this song isn't one of my favorites. 4/5

Woman From Tokyo, Another one of the classic rock staples and this is a cool song, I like the fact that it goes in different directions, sadly vocalist Ian Gillan and Roger Glover would leave the band within a year or so later but this song is a classic. 5/5

Burn: Here we meet new vocalist David Coverdale (who would later go onto great success a decade later with Whitesnake) and new bassist Glenn Hughes, this is probably my favorite Purple song with David Coverdale on vocals. 5/5

Stormbringer: It is my understanding that guitarist Ritchie Blackmore was dissapointed by the album cause they didn't want to record a remake of a certain song that he liked and this song isn't nearly as good as Burn. 4/5

Knocking at Your Back Door: After almost a decade of Deep Purple breaking up, they got back together and recorded a strong Deep Purple album called Perfect Strangers. 5/5

If you're a casual Deep Purple fan you'll want this album and I wish that Deep Purple would make a double greatest hits album cause there are songs that I would want to hear on a compilation album like Mary Long, Mule, Mistreated, Sail Away, Gettin' Tighter, Perfect Strangers and Lazy, other Deep Purple albums that I would recommend is Machine Head.