Perfect Strangers (Album)

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Perfect Strangers
Studio album by Deep Purple (Logo) .png

Publication
(s)

October 29, 1984

admission

August 1984

Label (s) Polydor Records

Format (s)

CD, LP, MC

Genre (s)

Hard rock

Title (number)

8 (LP), 9 (CD, MC)

running time

  • 39:28 (LP)
  • 44:13 (CD, MC)
occupation

production

Roger Glover, Deep Purple

Studio (s)

Horizons in Stowe, Vermont (USA)

chronology
Come Taste the Band
(1975)
Perfect Strangers The House of Blue Light
(1987)

Perfect Strangers (English for. " Strangers ") is the eleventh studio album of English hard rock band Deep Purple . This is the first album that was recorded with the reunited second band line-up .

background

As early as 1981 the press release made the rounds about a reunion of Deep Purple with their Mark II line-up ( Ritchie Blackmore , Ian Paice , Roger Glover , Ian Gillan and Jon Lord ) including a new album and subsequent European tour. But with Blackmore's commitment to his own band Rainbow , the project slowly ebbed away. But since some time later Blackmore and Lord became increasingly dissatisfied with the musical directions of their bands Rainbow and Whitesnake , nothing stood in the way of a reunion of their old band.

At the end of 1983 the five musicians met for a first conversation on the initiative of Ian Gillan. Blackmore created the first ideas for a new album with Deep Purple as early as January 1984, at the end of his work with Rainbow. According to a rumor, each musician was offered $ 2 million by Polygram. The five musicians signed a multi-year contract with Polydor.

Creation and publication

Then the band met in August 1984 in Stowe ( Vermont ) to record their eleventh album. The Re-Union album was produced by Roger Glover and Deep Purple. The record was mixed in the "Tennessee Tonstudio" in Hamburg. Ritchie Blackmore originally wanted to name the album "At Last, The 1974 Album" to emphasize that Deep Purple would build on it and complete what was interrupted in 1973. But the other band members overruled him because "they didn't want to sound like 1974, but like 1984" (Jon Lord). The album contained succinct riffs, including the title track “Perfect Strangers” and “Knocking at Your Back Door”, fast instrumental duels by Blackmore and Lord in “A Gypsy's Kiss” and the tried and tested “Deep Purple ingredients” in a slightly modernized sound sold well, as did the subsequent tour. During the US tour in 1985, the band had to give numerous additional concerts.

The CD and cassette versions of the album also contain the track "Not Responsible". In 1999 the CD was reissued. This CD contains the bonus instrumental track "Son of Alerik", which was previously released as the B-side of the single "Perfect Strangers".

Track list

Unless otherwise noted, the titles are written by Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, and Roger Glover

  1. Knocking at Your Back Door - 7:00 am
  2. Under the Gun - 4:35
  3. Nobody's Home (Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice) - 3:55
  4. Mean Streak - 4:20
  5. Perfect Strangers - 5:23
  6. A Gypsy's Kiss - 5:12
  7. Wasted Sunsets - 3:55
  8. Hungry Daze - 4:44

Bonus track (CD, MC)

  1. Not Responsible - 4:36

Bonus track (remastered CD from 1999)

  1. Son of Alerik (Ritchie Blackmore) - 10:02

reception

Deep Purple made a successful comeback with Perfect Strangers . It is one of their most successful and popular albums ever. The magazine Rock Hard published a list of the best of 500 rock and metal albums in 2007 and listed Perfect Strangers at number 231. Matthias Breusch came to the following conclusion in the same magazine: “Deep Purple have always been one step ahead of the competition. After the futile hope for a reunion of the Beatles, which came to an abrupt end with John Lennon's assassination in December 1980, the reunion of Purple in the Mark II line-up is the first and to this day largest "resurrection" in rock history in terms of media coverage . The release of the comeback disc Perfect Strangers , eight years after the end of the Mark IV line-up due to the death of Tommy Bolin, also sets musical standards, because Messrs Glover, Lord, Paice, Gillan and Blackmore haven't had an infusion for twelve years old songwriting techniques but amaze with a brand new, fresh hit album produced by bassist Roger Glover. The highlights of the disc are qualitatively in line with the grandiose compositions of the early years, even if they are stylistically at home on another continent and cannot even be compared with Ritchie Blackmore's Muckerfressermaschine Rainbow or Whitesnake (the most successful field of activity of Jon Lord and Ian Paice). Perfect Strangers turns out to be an irresistibly monumental title track, the class opener Knocking at Your Backdoor is a colorful billboard for excessive anal sex and a lively example of Ian Gillan's format as an ironic-poetic-political lyricist, and who doesn't for the gigantic slow song Wasted Sunsets Feels lump in the throat, has a heart of stone. ”He awarded nine out of 10 points.

Chart placements

album

year country Charts placement
1984/85 Switzerland Hitparade.ch 1
1984 Norway Norwegiancharts.com 2
1984 Austria Austriancharts.at 5
1985 United States Billboard 200 6th

Singles

year single country Charts placement
1985 Knocking at your back door United States Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks 7th
1984 Perfect Strangers United States Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks 12

Sales awards

The album received the following awards :

Recording Industry Association of America - RIAA (USA)

date vinyl record Edition
January 15, 1985 gold 500,000
April 9, 1985 platinum 1,000,000

Canadian Recording Industry Association - CRIA (Canada)

date vinyl record Edition
January 1, 1985 gold 50,000
March 1, 1985 platinum 100,000

literature

  • Jürgen Roth, Michael Sailer: Deep Purple. The story of a band , Höfen: Hannibal, 2005.
  • Barry Graves, Bernward Halbscheffel, Siegfried Schmidt-Joos: Rock-Lexikon , Reinbek: Rowohlt 1998.
  • Malcolm Dome: “Deep Purple. The 1984 Class ”, in ROCKS 23 (04/2011), pp. 80-83.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Roth, Sailer: Deep Purple , pp. 326-328.
  2. Graves, Halbscheffel, Schmidt-Joos: Rock-Lexikon , Vol. 1, p. 254.
  3. ^ Roth, Sailer: Deep Purple , p. 322.
  4. RockHard.de: Review Perfect Strangers
  5. ^ Hitparade.ch (accessed on July 28, 2009).
  6. ^ Norwegiancharts.com (accessed July 28, 2009).
  7. Austriancharts.at (accessed on July 28, 2009).
  8. GOLD & PLATINUM at www.riaa.com (accessed on July 28, 2009).
  9. Cria.ca (accessed on 28 July 2009).