“Great riffs”: Tony Iommi named his favourite Deep Purple album
The musical innovations of the 1960s set the scene for many musical forms, from punk and alt-rock to ambient electronic sounds. One genre that started to take shape during the latter stages of the decade, when rock was evolving into a darker sonic palette, was heavy metal. Although a handful of groups contributed to the sound coalescing, the three that established its key pillars were Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple.
The ultimate masterstroke by each outfit collectively realised that the relatively lightweight music of the flower-power movement was on its way out and that fans had a growing appetite for more muscular, atmospheric, and immersive sonic landscapes. This newfound predilection for heaviness, thanks to the work of Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Iron Butterfly and Mountain, was also underpinned by a changing world.
Not only was the counterculture dying a wretched death, but life itself was taking an even more miserable turn than anyone could have imagined just a few years prior at the peak of hippiedom in the Summer of 1967, and the future looked incredibly bleak for all.
It was only natural that musical tastes and the general character of rock music should shift in tandem with the world’s metamorphosis. When the 1970s arrived, rock was primed for a decade of increased heaviness. This materialised alongside an obsession with darkness and the intrigue surrounding sprawling fantasies, mythologies, and the occult. Just as it had been in the countercultural period, music was still a form of escapism; its parameters had just shifted.
Each of the three bands leading the metal sweep in 1970 were spiritual brothers in arms and fans of each other’s work. For instance, Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore has been open about the direct impact of Led Zeppelin on his band’s sound and once explained how their most influential record, 1970’s Deep Purple in Rock, took heavily from Zeppelin’s expansive character.
Demonstrating this shared perspective further, Page has also been full of credit for Blackmore, noting his status as the finest guitarist at soloing and improvising live, two things that he himself has long been hailed as the greatest at. Yet, according to him, he “couldn’t touch” the ‘Black Night’ whizz.
Black Sabbath was always the outlier of the three groups. Not only were they from Birmingham and not London, but their music was by far the heaviest, perched upon Tony Iommi’s sludgy de-turned riffs, an assertive rhythm section, and lyrics steeped in darkness and occult themes—particularly on their first duo of albums from 1970. Yet, they were also open fans of their metal counterparts from the capital, with Iommi a lover of Deep Purple and Blackmore’s work, regardless of the apparent sonic discrepancies between them and his own outfit’s effort.
Iommi is in no doubt about what he believes is the finest Deep Purple album, and surprise, surprise, it is their own most significant contribution to the metal genre: Deep Purple in Rock. As this was now the era of titanic guitarists, it is comprised of only “great riffs”, he told Classic Rock in 2024, with ‘Speed King’ typifying this.
“I always liked Deep Purple, and my favourite album of theirs is In Rock,” Iommi told the publication. “It has one classic song after another. They always used to come up with great riffs, and Speed King is hard to beat.”
It’s not just Blackmore’s riffs that qualify the 1970 album as Deep Purple’s best for Iommi, either. To him, ‘Speed King’ is most representative of the London group at their peak as the energetic number showcases each member for what they were, great musicians, with all working in tandem to create palpable sonic force, from wailing vocalist Ian Gillan to the dynamic fingerwork of keyboardist Jon Lord. As with all great bands, they were the sum of their parts.
