Deep Purple - Television Tropes & Idioms

Deep Purple Mk2, circa Machine Head. Left to Right: Ritchie Blackmore*, Ian Gillan*, Roger Glover*, John Lord*, Ian Paice*

"Nobody gonna take my car, gonna race it to the ground

Nobody gonna beat my car, gonna break the speed of sound"

—"Highway Star"

Deep Purple is a long-running hard rock band founded in 1968. They are one of the widely considered "Big Three" of early Heavy Metal (along with Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin). Their style is primarily Blues Rock and Hard Rock, with occasional ventures into other rock subgenres including some prog efforts.

The group is also known for their constantly rotating line-up; the group has its roots in a proposed rock band called Roundabout, so named because musicians would get "on and off" the group as they pleased. This didn't quite work out, and while the group that eventually became Deep Purple is notable for its endless membership changes, each succesive group has been more or less a cohesive unit.

A list of the various line-ups, or "marks", can be found here

Some famous Deep Purple songs:

Band Discography, with which lineup recorded each*:

Mark I*

Shades of Deep Purple (1968)
The Book of Taliesyn (1968)
Deep Purple (1969)

Mark II*

Deep Purple In Rock (1970)
Fireball (1971)
Machine Head (1972)
Who Do We Think We Are (1973)
Perfect Strangers (1984)
The House of Blue Light (1987)
The Battle Rages On (1993)

Mark III*

Burn (1974)
Stormbringer (1974)

Mark IV*

Come Taste The Band (1975)

Mark V*

Slaves And Masters (1990)

Mark VII*

Purpendicular (1996)
Abandon (1998)

Mark VIII*

Bananas (2003)
Rapture of the Deep (2005)

Some tropes in this band's history include:

A Worldwide Punomenon: Many of their album (and song) titles, with Purpendicular and Abandon *
i.e., A Band On
being two prominent examples.
Album Title Drop: "Listen, Learn, Read On" from The Book of Taliesyn.
All Drummers Are Animals: Aversion. Even with Ian Paice's explosive drumming style, he is The Quiet One of the group and is the only remaining original member.
Author Existence Failure: Narrowly averted by Mark IV's guitarist Tommy Bolin; he died after Mark IV, and by extension the band (until 1984 at least), disbanded.
The Band Minus the Face: Played straight with the band disbanding when Ritchie Blackmore departed, then subverted when the classic Mark II lineup reunited in 1984. Then double subverted when Blackmore left the group for good in 1993.
Car Song: "Highway Star".
Contemptible Cover: It doesn't help that the cover of their third (self-titled) album is a painting by Hieronymous Bosch.
Cover Version: Quite a few, especially of songs by The Beatles (one of which, "Help", was thought of by John Lennon to be better than their own version). "Hush" (arguably one of Deep Purple's most famous songs) is also a cover (the original by Billy Joe Royal was released a year before Deep Purple's version).
Creator Breakdown: See Meaningful Name below. Besides that, Mark IV, where Tommy Bolin's drug problems finally made the band's life unbearable enough for Lord and Paice (the two remaining original members at that point) to decide to disband.
Does Not Like Shoes: Ian Gillan.
Downer Ending: Occurs in "Strange Kind Of Woman"...
She finally said she loved me
I wed her in a hurry
No more callers and I glowed with pride
I'm dreaming
I feel like screaming
I won my woman just before she died
Epic Instrumental Opener: "Lazy." Nearly four and a half minutes of organ solo before the actual song starts. (And the rest of the song is only three minutes long!)
- Their cover of The Beatles' "We Can Work it Out" also opened with a long instrumental called "Exposition" (which, true to Jon Lord's classical background, includes quotes from Beethoven's seventh symphony and Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet" overture).
- And prefiguring "Lazy", we have "April" from their third, self-titled album, of which only the final third has vocals.
- Their cover of Ike and Tina Turner's "River Deep, Mountain High" has a four-minute intro.
Epic Rocking: On most of their albums.
- "The Mule" and several other songs from Deep Purple In Rock, Fireball, and Machine Head live (at least circa Made In Japan). Definitely well-deserved; who doesn't want to sit through twenty minutes of "Space Truckin'" or "Smoke on the Water?"
- "Child in Time". That is all.
Genre Roulette: While they are generally considered a Hard Rock band, their music incorporates multiple influences. In addition, each Mark has its signature take on rock (with Mark I being more of a Progressive Rock bent, Mark II on the harder rock/metal part, Mark III known for funk influences, and so on).
Great Balls of Fire: At the California Jam, where the group had to exit by helicopter to avoid arrest by fire marshals and ABC executives.
Incendiary Exponent: Both Fireball and Burn evoke this, and then there's the subject of "Smoke on the Water".
In Name Only: An infamous faux-reunion in 1980 with Rod Evans as the only member to have had anything to do with Deep Purple; fortunately they were given a cease-and-desist order.
Instrumentals: "And the Address...", "Wring That Neck", "A 200", "Contact Lost".
Intercourse with You: "Hard Lovin' Man".
Knight Templar Parent: The father in "Anyone's Daughter".
Long Runner Lineup: Mark II barely makes it as a Type V, totaling 10 years and two months.
Meaningful Name: Ian Paice, the drummer. May also be a Punny Name.
- The albums Who Do We Think We Are (last album before Mark II's dissolution and the formation of Mark III) and The Battle Rages On (Mark II's last album, period) reflect the Creative Differences that had affected the band, primarily between Blackmore and Gillan.
Metal Scream: Ian Gillan in Child in Time.
- May this also count as Careful With That Axe ?
Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness: Ranges from 2 ("Anyone's Daughter") to 7 ("Fireball"), but rarely goes lower than 5.
Nice Hat: Roger Glover. In recent years he's taken to a bandana, though. Ritchie Blackmore also sported a top hat in the mid-70s, as seen on the cover of Burn.
One Steve Limit: Averted by Ian Gillan (singer) and Ian Paice (drummer).
Rearrange the Song: The band produced a reworked version of the Mark II era song "Bloodsucker" and released it as "Blüdsucker" on their album Abandon.
Recycled Lyrics: "hard lovin' man" from "Bloodsucker", and reappearing on the track of the same name later on the same album.
- Lampshaded in the song Hungry Daze from their 1984 album Perfect Strangers, which recycles the first line of Smoke On The Water
  "We all came down to Montreux, but that's another song"
Revolving Door Band
Rockers Smash Guitars: California Jam, 1974; Blackmore threw guitars into the audience and more infamously smashed a network video camera with his guitar.
Rushmore Refacement: The cover of Deep Purple In Rock.
- Also an Incredibly Lame Visual Pun.
Scatting
Self-Titled Album: Notably, their third one instead of the more typical debut album (which, however, still contained the band name).
Shout Out: Rad Racer, one of the earliest games published by Squaresoft, was titled "Highway Star" in Japan.
- And then there's Sosuke Esumi, Speed King, whose partner Speedor is a Highway Star.
Show, Don't Tell: "Highway Star" counts. It was written as a response to an interviewer's question regarding how the band writes their songs.
Song Of Song Titles: Sort of. The first song Gillan ever wrote with Deep Purple was "Speed King", where he just quoted bits of lyrics from other rock 'n roll tunes (by Little Richard, Elvis Presley and so on) - apparently only the chorus is 100% his.
Space Trucker: "Space Truckin'". Partly the Trope Namer, as it seems.
Spin-Off: Rainbow, arguably. And Whitesnake, too; what with Mark III/IV vocalist David Coverdale being, well, the band.
Stop and Go: "Pictures of Home".
Take That : "MTV" from Rapture of the Deep is a scathing take on the modern music industry, down to disk jockeys getting band member names wrong. So is "Mary Long" from Who Do We Think We Are, this time against Moral Guardians.