10 Rock Songs That Took Shots At Other Artists

Of all the founding bands of hard rock, Deep Purple seemed to have the most contentious relationship in the early days of the band. Even though the Mark II lineup of the group with Ian Gillan and Roger Glover made for some of the most classic songs in their repertoire, the next few years were not exactly sunshine and roses, more or less caused by Ritchie Blackmore getting more and more particular about where their sound should go. There's no way to really balance that, so you might as well just channel that anger in some other way.

Coming off of Machine Head, Who Do We Think We Are was a smooth continuation on what Purple had started, only with a few more cheeky sounds this time around. While Smooth Dancer could easily be about someone who has a smooth facade about them, Gillan has said that this song was directly inspired by Ritchie's behavior, making Gillan feel more like a free agent in a band that he helped send all the way to the top.

While it's nice to hear that Ian has some sort of determination to continue on in the face of Ritchie's antics, the rest of the band eventually sided with Blackmore's way of thinking, replacing both Gillan and Glover with David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes for the next album Burn. It did end up coming around though, with Blackmore signing off to make it on his own with Rainbow and eventually Blackmore's Night and Gillan and Glover coming back into the band in the past few years.