As I said I would give Purple major influence on any progressive hard rock styles but I'd say Van Halen influenced styles that became bigger than what Purple influenced. I'm not denying that Purple was a very influential band. That's partly why they're as high as #7.

It should not all be attributed to Van Halen of course but Van Halen were far more visible during the formative years of glam metal than Whitesnake, who didn't achieve mainstream appeal in the US until the mid-80s. Also compare pictures of Van Halen and Whitesnake in 1978. VH are already much closer to the visual style of glam while Whitesnake look like your stereotypical hard rock act.

I disagree, Purple is one of the pioneer`s of hard rock and defined the sound to a generation and they were one of the grandfathers of heavy metal to speed and trash metal... they influenced the members of VH to Metallica to Iron Maiden to Aerosmith to Guns N Roses to Def Leppard to Rage Against the Machine to Motorhead and to all most evey band associated to the NWOBHM to countless hard rocks bands found in the four corners of the planet and so on .... they were on the ground floor and took their version of hard rock around the world in those days that was only matched by Zeppelin ........Take care

But what you described in that post sounds more like musical impact to me, admiration from fellow hard rock musicians. Influence means innovating/popularizing something. They made hard rock more complex, more musically advanced but the most popular hard rock is not very complex or musically advanced. What else did they do that was absolutely new? What can be found in Def Leppard's music, or in Motörhead's that is undeniably a Deep Purple invention?

... the reverse of that is VH did not achieve mainstream appeal in the UK until the mid 80`s ....

and one assumes you must be able to see the band to know it is hair metal rather than just hard rock ..... if they shave their heads or wore hats would the music sound different or just be hard rock? .... Take care

... start with your same test with Van Halen ... EVH popularizing tapping? ...

and then apply it to the Blackmore era of Purple as one small example or the Tommy Bolin era of Purple or the Steve Morse era of Purple .... Take care

But that is not true. VH had their first UK top 40 album before Whitesnake. In 1980 "Women and Children First" went to #15.


I do think that the hair metal bands sounded somewhat different and that the scene defined itself more via a similar visual appearance than a similar sound.

They spearheaded the hair metal movement. They were the main catalyst for a whole new brand of pop-influenced hard rock bands breaking into the mainstream and keeping hard rock alive on mainstream radio throughout the 1980s.


I think you're more competent to do this than me. (= I don't see what you're getting at.)

EDIT: Oh, you mean tapping? But Blackmore wasn't the first one to use it, was he?

Hm, ok, still better than Whitesnake in the US.

It is true... it only charted for a total of 7 weeks ... Take care

WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST
Produced by: Ted Templeman
Date: 05/04/1980 - Run: 29-*15*-21-36-45-59-0-70

.. followed by

FAIR WARNING
Produced by: Ted Templeman
Date: 23/05/1981 - Run: 53-*49*-51-70

Good to Me.