Do you think Malice in Wonderland would have sold better if they’d put the title track first on the album?
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No, but it might have had they mixed Bernie Marsden’s co-vocals louder! Ghost Story was a very atmospheric and musically attention-getting opener.
Does your Dad know you’re here? Is this even within your allotted screen time?
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No - it’s one of my favourite Purple-related albums, but Big Band Hard Rock was a big ask to sell at a time Punk was taking over. I think sales would have improved had they been able to take the tour to Europe/Japan, but sadly never got the chance.
Tony Ashton had endless charm as a singer, but a very limited voice and range. Confronting people who had been raised with the voices of IG, GH, DC and RJD - all of them stellar, even Olympic singers - was both daring and doomed to fail. I think PAL would have fared better with a stronger singer.
I still love the album. But I also remember that back in the 70s the main gripe people had with it were not the dual keyboards, the horn section, the funky bass and drums or the chick singers, but Tony’s voice which could be euphemistically described as “gravelly” and “singing-speaking”.
Sure it didn’t fit into the punk Zeitgeist, but then which post-DP-split release by the various survivors did? Probably the frenzy prevalent in GILLAN still the most.
I was thinking about how on Stormbringer and CTtB the hardest songs were put as the opening tracks and therefore disguised the albums as more heavy rock as they actually were.And especially in the vinyl age the first track of an album seems to have mattered a lot regarding the decission whether to buy an album or not. That led me to the conlusion that the title track on Malice in Wonderland as an opener could have tricked the average hard rock enthusiast more into buying that record.
P.S. I’m not talking about my personal taste here, I love PAL, I’m just pondering about marketing decisions here.
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I hear you, it’s just that Malice in Wonderland is for me the weakest composition on the album, heavy or not!
But selling PAL as a hard rock band wouldn‘t have worked anyway, they did not conform to type with their multi-level stage set and the way Ashton and Marsden looked. And neither Ashton nor Marsden had a hard rock shouter type of voice though I like Bernie‘s pop voice a lot, it would have worked fine with Badfinger!
Tony was more of a Brit Tom Waits to me, but with none of the latter’s darkly animalistic might.
PS: For the benefit of our German readers, you can’t mention that epic Tom Waits song without pointing to the likewise brilliant version of it as performed by the criminally underrated Interzone and the late great Heiner Pudelko, Germany‘s greatest rock singer ever:
As much as I love it, PAL was a vanity project by three good mates. Hard Rock still had a following, and the NWOBHM was just around the corner, but Big Band Rock Fusion was just not what the public was after back then, even with the Purple connection.
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Fighting words, I loved Blood, Sweat & Tears even as a young hard rock fan!
But they had both with David Clayton-Thomas and Jerry Fisher (featured above) always powerhouse singers. Ashton, for all his charm, wasn’t in that league. If you are going to front a band with a horn section, you need pipes. Imagine if Graham Parker had sung with PAL.
But perhaps indeed nothing for the UK market. Had PAL shown the commitment of doing a grinding grassroots tour of America opening for someone like Little Feat or The Doobie Brothers or Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes
things might have looked different. But Paicey and Jon were saturated and thought something like that was beneath them. Much later, Coverdale showed them it could be done.
I don’t think track order impacts noticeably on sales.
PAL was not a band that was commercially minded, and I’m thankful for that.
They were not specially photogenic and more than that they were doing art rock at the time of punk rock and disco. They were making the music they’d want to listen to.
I don’t think they really had the backing of a true record company (the ones Purple Records licensed their labelled records to). As far as I know, Lord and Paice put their money on it.
It was the most spectacular way to burn money I’ve ever seen. More than Gillan’s hotel or motorcycle business, because PAL can be enjoyed by each of us.
Isn’t that how we burn our own money with music we love?
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Like all of you said above: excellent music, but a vanity project that failed to fly commercially.
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Sorry I don’t remember if I asked you already:
Did you hear Simon’s cover of “Go Down Gamblin”?
I actually don’t think it failed to fly commercially, I think that was not the goal.
If any of them thought it was, they were seriously deluded, but anyway my life is richer for their delusion.
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Uwe, to keep things in perspective, Coverdale didn’t do that USA touring with a ‘big band’, if you know what I mean. PAL had not a lot of backing, if any at all, as in promotion and management and even if they did, as we all know that style of music would not have worked at all at that time. Didn’t Jon and Tony fly to the USA to have a look or at least attempt to get something going over there? Cynically speaking, they both probably spent a fair amount of time sampling certain clubs and bars etc and all the different Cognac. It was fraught with danger from the start that rather good band. A pity, but they did at least get it together to record and perform a little. Too much alcohol as Rory did sing. I am being a little too critical perhaps. Cheers.
Marcelo, in regard to spectacularly burning large amounts of money, we need to look no further than ELP with their rather ambitious attempt at touring with a 70 piece orchestra, circa 1977. That setup was pulled after quite a number of shows and reportedly almost bankrupted the band. Ironically around the same time as PAL, now there’s a coincidence, he he he. Touring as we know costs a lot of money, but for ELP to attempt that, well, they did survive it, but financially it was a disaster of epic proportions. Paice and Lord financially got off quite well in comparison. Cheers.
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Nope, is that on one of his solo albums?
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[Whispering, since as you know, I’m on Topic Police probation period: "Yes, on his excellent Crossing the Line album! Young curly haired dude on the cover "]
I guess even the slightly more heavy rocking title track would still be too funky to fool any headbanger into buying that gem. Same as with Play me out or White.Snake and Clear Air Turbulence. Big faves of mine all of them.
Fun fact: They tried that kind of stunt for Northwinds where the brillant title track had to make way for the less elusive Keep on giving me love on a rerelease of the album.
And on some albums it went they other way round… All night long, I surrender and Long way from home pushed the obvious opening tracks of those albums aside to open the proceedings with a radio friendly catchy little pop song…