Deep Purple - Machine Head (25th Anniversary Edition) (1997)

Machine Head is the sixth studio album by English rock band Deep Purple. It was recorded in December 1971 in Montreux, Switzerland, and released on 30 March 1972 by Purple Records. It is the band's third album to feature the Mark II line-up of Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice.

Previous recording sessions had been slotted into the group's gigging schedule. This time, Deep Purple wanted to dedicate time to record an album away from the typical studio environment, hoping it would result in a sound closer to their live shows. They used the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio for recording and block-booked the Montreux Casino as a venue, but during a Frank Zappa concert immediately before the sessions, the casino burned to the ground after an audience member fired a flare gun into the ceiling. After a week of searching for an alternative venue, including a session at a nearby theatre that was abandoned due to noise complaints, the band managed to book the Grand Hotel, closed for the winter, and converted it into a live room suitable for recording. These events, particularly the casino fire, became the inspiration for the song "Smoke on the Water".

Machine Head became Deep Purple's most commercially successful album, topping the charts in several countries, including the UK. Influential in the development of heavy metal, it continues to be viewed favourably by music critics and has been reissued several times.

Although it has been re-released for its 40th anniversary and in the coming weeks (two years late) for its 50th anniversary, it is always with slightly modified content. (Let's say the last one is "not a disadvantage" if the collector has a slightly better way of shelling out approx. 40 springs for the otherwise lavish box...)

The most interesting and serious first reissue was this 97 double album, with an awful lot of information (28-page booklet...) and a disc that was never released before or since.

These include versions of songs that only "very insiders" knew, or even they didn't. Longer versions, other solos, this is definitely a treat for those who are not familiar with it.

They didn't add this material to the 50th anniversary edition, instead they slapped on the material that was published at the same time under the title "In Concert" (and left and right), although it's not bad, I'm not saying that because it also included a previously unreleased Montreux concert found somewhere.