Who Do We Think We Are is the seventh studio album by the English rock band Deep Purple, released on 12 January 1973 in the US and in February 1973 in the UK. It was Deep Purple's last album by the Mark II line-up with singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover until 1984's Perfect Strangers.
Musically, the record showed a move to a more blues-based sound, Although its production and the band's behaviour after its release showed the group in turmoil, with frontman Gillan remarking that "we'd all had major illnesses" and felt considerable fatigue, the album was a commercial success. Deep Purple became the top-selling U.S. artist in 1973.
Ian Gillan left the band following this album, citing internal tensions – widely thought to include a feud with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. However, in an interview supporting the Mark II Purple comeback album Perfect Strangers, Gillan stated that fatigue and management had a lot to do with it:
Added Jerry Bloom, editor of the book More Black than Purple:
The last Mark II concert in the 1970s before Gillan and Glover left was in Osaka, Japan on 29 June 1973. and number 15 in the US charts. These numbers helped make Deep Purple the best-selling artist in the United States in 1973 (with the release of Made in Japan, the "Smoke on the Water" single, and the prior acclaim for Machine Head helping considerably).
In 2000 Who Do We Think We Are was remastered and re-released with bonus tracks. The last bonus track is a lengthy instrumental jam called "First Day Jam" that features Ritchie Blackmore on bass. Roger Glover, the group's usual bassist, was absent, allegedly lost in traffic. Roger also did remixes of many tracks, but Mary Long was not included (it appears on 2002 box set, "Listen, Learn, Read On").
In 2005 Audio Fidelity released their own re-mastering of the album on 24 karat Gold CD.
Reception
The album received mixed reviews. Ann Cheauvy of Rolling Stone reviewed the album negatively and, comparing Who Do We Think We Are to Deep Purple's breakthrough album In Rock, wrote that the former "sounds so damn tired in spots that it's downright disconcerting", and "the band seems to just barely summon up enough energy to lay down the rhythm track, much less improvise." In a retrospective critical review, Eduardo Rivadavia of AllMusic expresses the same opinion and writes that, apart from "Woman from Tokyo", the album's songs are "wildly inconsistent and find the band simply going through the motions", although he does praise "Rat Bat Blue".
Track listing
Personnel
;Deep Purple
- Ritchie Blackmore – guitars
- Ian Gillan – vocals
- Roger Glover – bass
- Jon Lord – keyboards
- Ian Paice – drums, percussion
;Additional personnel
- Produced by Deep Purple
- Martin Birch – engineer
- Jeremy Gee, Nick Watterton – Rolling Stones Mobile Unit operators
- Ian Paice and Roger Glover – mixing
- Ian Hansford, Rob Cooksey, Colin Hart, Ron Quinton – equipment
- Roger Glover and John Coletta – cover design
- Peter Denenberg with Roger Glover – bonus tracks remixing (2000 edition)
- Peter Mew – remastering (original album tracks) and mastering (bonus tracks) at Abbey Road Studios, London (2000 edition)
Charts
Weekly charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! Chart (1973)
! Peak<br/>position
|-
! scope="row"| Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)
| align="center"| 5
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"|Danish Albums (Hitlisten)
|align="center"|1
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Finnish Albums (The Official Finnish Charts)
| align="center"| 4
|-
|-
!scope="row"|Japanese Albums (Oricon)
| align="center"| 15
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Spanish Albums (AFYVE)
|align="center"| 12
|-
!scope="row"|Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)
| align="center"|4
|-
|-
|}
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|-
! Chart (2018)
! Peak<br/>position
|-
|}
Year-end charts
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|-
! scope="col" | Chart (1973)
! scope="col" | Position
|-
! scope="row" | German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)
| 13
|}