Fly into the rising sun

Deep Purple - Who do we think we are? - 1973

This is not a very well liked album by fans or critics.
It was not only the last album that the MarkII lineup would release, but things were pretty wrong between the members during the recording. Also, they were touring like crazy, so the recording was done in a rather patchy fashion, and coming up with new tracks for the album wasn't an easy feat either.
Now, all this actually justifies this one being a bit of a lesser album, and when compared to some of their previous stuff, especially In Rock and Machine Head, this feels a bit weaker. But I never understood the excessive criticism towards the album.
It does sound like a bit of a throwback to previous days, to me, and for a long time I actually thought this album came before In Rock. The sound is bluesier than anything MkII had done before, songs are shorter and there's nothing of the frenzy of some of their previous work. And in a way, why would there have to be? If anything, I like they changed styles a bit. Listening to their discography in order, I was beginning to feel like there was a template they used for the structure of their albums. Mind you, they would fill that template in a brilliant way, but my point is this is a different album, and probably that's what pissed everybody off so much: that they were not really doing what they were supposed to.
Still, I like this album quite a lot, and I think there are a few really great tracks in its short 35 minutes, among them "Woman from Tokyo",  "Smooth Dancer" and "Rat Bat Blue", and it would be hard to point at any tracks as bad or weak.

• The title of the album refers to them receiving a lot of mail back then, some from fans, some not so much. The latter would usually start by saying "Who do Deep Purple think they are...". Haters will hate. 
• This is always going to be, for me, the "real" Deep Purple lineup. And while I like some of the stuff they did with Coverdale, it's like they were a different band. They did a hell of a lot with just a few albums, didn't they? 

Ah-ah, my, my, what you doin' to me?

Geordie - Hope you like it - 1973

A long time before he went to sing with AC/DC (and actually before AC/DC even had an album), vocalist Brian Johnson was singing for this band from Newcastle. 

They released a single late in 1972,  "Don't do that", which was quite successful, and then released this album, which did quite well too. 

This is officially classified as "glam rock", and I guess there are some elements there, or some influences. They had, after all, toured with Slade, and it was the sound at the time. And the guitars, at times, do sound a lot like glam-rock but, for the most part, this seems to me a straight-forward, good times pub rock band. Including, as you can guess from the title of this section, the extremely profound lyrics. But that's both true for pub rock and glam rock, I guess. Not that there's anything wrong with that. 

They didn't really invent anything and there's not much of special about this album. Still it's a lot of fun to listen to it and while Brian Johnson's voice has never been one of my favourites, and it's not perfect here, it's more varied than it ever had a chance to be in AC/DC.