CoronaVinyl Day 104 (Color in the Name): Made in Japan by Deep Purple

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

Today's CoronaVinyl category is "color in the name."  Over the years there have been many great bands and artists that have a color in their name, and I have records made by many of them, some of which I've already featured in CoronaVinyl:  Average White Band, Black Sabbath, James Brown, Cream, Deep Purple, Al Green, The Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Jack White, and The White Stripes, to name a few.

I decided to go with one of heavy metal's founding members, Deep Purple, and their seminal 1972 live album Made in Japan.  Though the phrase "we're big in Japan" has kind of become an inside joke in the music industry for bands who didn't quite make it in the U.S. or the UK, Deep Purple was one of the first bands that actually was big in Japan (in addition to being big in their native UK and the U.S. too).  Made in Japan was recorded over three nights in August 1972, the first two in Osaka and the third in Tokyo.  Four of the tracks were from the band's iconic Machine Head album released earlier in 1972, and the band hits on all cylinders on Made in Japan, showing why there were considered one of the best live bands around at the time.

Initially, the album was only supposed to be released in Japan, but the record company wisely decided to release it worldwide.  It was a massive success, and it set the bar for live albums, which were not very common at the time.  The album went to #6 on the Billboard album chart, which remains the band's highest-charting album in the U.S.  It also went to #16 on the UK album chart, #1 on the album charts in Austria and Germany, and to the Top 10 on the album charts in Canada, Denmark, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.  Made in Japan is widely considered to be one of the best live albums ever made, and even in 2012, Rolling Stone's readers ranked it the 6th best live album of all-time.

Since the album is only seven songs on four sides -- with the last track, "Space Truckin'" taking up the entire fourth side at nearly 20 minutes long, I'm not going to pick my favorite song from each side.  All seven songs are classic Deep Purple songs.  Some highlights for me include the first track, "Highway Star" (which is one of my favorite Deep Purple songs), Ian Paice's insane drum solo on "The Mule," and John Lord's organ solo on "Lazy."  Just sit back and listen to the whole album while you celebrate Dab Day.