While seemingly half of Europe was copying Deep Purple In Rock's innovations with hard rock, the band themselves regressed back into blues rock. At least for the first side. Though the opening title track is a burner, the rest takes us back to the late 60s pre proggy era of Purple, and is shockingly ordinary. Side 2, however, makes up for it and picks up where the last album left off. Much more interesting and creative hard rock - though not trailblazing. When it's 1971, you are Deep Purple, and your album is named Fireball, one presumes you'll get more than this. Led Zeppelin, for their part, put out 'Stairway to Heaven' among other tracks etched into our collective DNA's. You think they created some separation there in the public's mind? Oh yea. Meanwhile Black Sabbath was dominating the underground with Master of Reality. Most people here couldn't name one song on Fireball, as none of these made it out of the early 70s as far as American FM radio was concerned. They were to make up for all of this in a big way the following year with Machine Head. But they lost some ground in 1971, a most pivotal year.
Ownership: CD: 2000 Warner Bros. / Rhino. For whatever reason, I didn't buy (or hear) this album in high school or college and that status remained until 2006 when I finally picked up a commodity CD. My feelings above haven't changed one bit - the album remains to me a very good album - but disappointing. In 2017 I picked up this definitive CD version. This is exactly how I like my CDs to be. A full written history, new photos, vintage posters, old reviews, and multiple relevant bonus tracks including a 45 single. I've had a few opportunities recently to buy older US LP pressings of this at retail prices, but this CD is all I need. Even if I find a decent copy at a thrift shop, I'll probably just resell it.
2//06; 8/13/16; 3/25/17; 10/23/22 (new entry)
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