10 Legendary Rock Bands With Sophomore Slump Albums

The Deep Purple that most of the rock world knows and loves today is not what we initially saw back in the late '60s. Looking to make something a bit harsher than what was coming out of the pop scene, these guys were looking to put some hard rock into their bluesy sound, and even got a hit out of the deal with their first single Hush coming off of their debut record. On the second record, this is where the cracks really started to form.

While this one is not too far removed from what they were doing on the first record, the golden hit just wasn't really here. Seeing how they were an albums band, that shouldn't matter, right? Well, the album itself tends to be a bit scattershot from one song to the next, as they try to jam on these ideas and don't really take them very far on any of them.

Granted, there has been some argument as to whether that's the fault of Nick Simper and Rod Evans, who would both be kicked out of the band in the next few years and replaced with Ian Gillan and Roger Glover. Their contributions to the Book of Taliesyn are not horrendous by any means...they just aren't necessarily breaking new ground on the level of Jon Lord or Ritchie Blackmore. Deep Purple may have been on the way to something a lot more adventurous, but they really needed to get their jam band side out of their system on this record.