Machine Head

The band had planned to record at the Montreux Casino with the Rolling Stones Mobile, but the casino burned down during a Frank Zappa and the Mothers concert. They moved to the Grand Hotel. The basic track of Smoke on the Water was cut at the Pavilion theatre until police stopped it over the noise, and the rest was recorded in the hotel corridor, with the mobile truck at the entrance and closed-circuit television giving Martin Birch a view of the band. Blackmore said it took about three weeks. The record is dedicated to Claude Nobs of the Montreux Jazz Festival.

Sid Smith of the BBC wrote in 2007 that Machine Head was the band's strongest and most consistent set, and the benchmark against which everything that followed would be judged. He praised Gillan on Highway Star and Never Before, the latter a single released ahead of the album with When a Blind Man Cries as its B-side. The Guardian put the album in its 1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die in 2007, calling it the epitome of 1970s heavy metal and the Smoke on the Water riff the compulsory first step for anyone learning rock guitar.

It reached number one in Britain and number one in Canada. In the United States it stalled at number 34, then climbed to number seven in 1973 after the Smoke on the Water single. It is the band's most commercially successful album. Lester Bangs in Rolling Stone wrote that it was nothing but good, hard-socking music, and AllMusic's Eduardo Rivadavia called it one of the essential hard rock albums of all time. Kerrang! placed it at number 35 on its 1989 list of the greatest heavy metal albums.

The 25th anniversary edition in 1997 was remixed by Glover. A 40th anniversary box in 2012 added In Concert '72, and a Super Deluxe Edition in March 2024 used a remix by Dweezil Zappa.