10 Most Un-Metal Songs By Major Metal Artists

3. Concerto for Group and Orchestra - Deep Purple

Metal and classical music have had a lot of shared qualities for years now. From the technical mastery some guitarists have over their fretboard to the mammoth sounding arrangements you find in its songs, the production of a metal album is not all that different to an orchestral performance once you break it down. Though it seems like commonplace now, Deep Purple were one of the first to take that concept quite literally.

As they were coming off a massive rock album with In Rock, keyboardist Jon Lord convinced the rest of the band to collaborate with the London orchestra for an entire concert featuring both classical and rock tunes. While songs like Speed King work surprisingly well in this context, the collaborative piece Concerto for Group and Orchestra could be considered Lord's magnum opus. Written meticulously over the years, the non-classically trained members of Purple found the experience daunting, with vocalist Ian Gillan not writing the lyrics to the second movement until a few hours before the show.

The end result though was absolutely beautiful, which inspired much of the classical traces of metal later down the line from Randy Rhoads to the eventual metal Paganini Yngwie Malmsteen. There's not as much crunch here, but no one's going to argue with the sheer power behind this track.