The House of Blue Light

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The House of Blue Light
Studio album by Deep Purple (Logo) .png

Publication
(s)

January 12, 1987

Label (s) Polydor Records

Format (s)

CD , LP , MC

Genre (s)

Hard rock

Title (number)

10

running time

46:16 (LP, 1999 CD)
50:38 (1987 CD)

occupation

production

Deep Purple

Studio (s)

The Playhouse in Stowe, Vermont (USA)

chronology
Perfect Strangers
( 1984 )
The House of Blue Light Slaves and Masters
( 1990 )

The House of Blue Light (English for: "Das Blaulichthaus") is the twelfth studio album by the English hard rock band Deep Purple and was released on January 12, 1987. It is the second album that was recorded with the reunited Mark II line-up .

background

The band met in Connecticut at the turn of 1985/1986 to work on new songs. With the album, the band wanted to be musically more willing to take risks again. In production, Blackmore first used a guitar synthesizer , and Paice used electronic drums ( The Unwritten Law ). It took a long time to record the album. In January 1987 the result of this meeting was the album The House Of Blue Light , which was named after a text passage of the title Speed ​​King from 1970. Ritchie Blackmore said much of the LP was re-recorded. After completion, the band went on a world tour. A live album entitled Nobody's Perfect was recorded on the House of Blue Light tour . Within the group there had been disputes for a long time, which caused Gillan, who did not like the album The House of Blue Light , to leave the group. He was later replaced by Joe Lynn Turner.

The album was recorded at the Playhouse in Vermont by Nick Blagona, assisted by Guy Charbonneau. Mixing was done in Union Studios in Munich by Harry Schnitzler, post-processing in Sterling Studios in New York by Greg Calbi.

Some tracks on the LP version are shorter than those on the original 1987 CD. The 1999 CD was remastered from the original vinyl master tapes, so its running time is also correspondingly shorter than the original CD version. This system used by some artists at the time was intended to promote sales of the CD, which was then still on the rise.

Track list

The track length of the LP and the current CD version is given here, the length of the CD version from 1987 is given in brackets.

  1. Bad Attitude (Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord) - 4:43 (5:04)
  2. The Unwritten Law (Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Ian Paice) - 4:34 (4:54)
  3. Call of the Wild (Ian Gillan, Ritchie Blackmore, Roger Glover, Jon Lord) - 4:50 (4:48)
  4. Mad Dog (Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover) - 4:29 (4:36)
  5. Black and White (Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord) - 3:39 (4:39)
  6. Hard Lovin 'Woman (Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover) - 3:24 (3:25)
  7. The Spanish Archer (Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover) - 4:56 (5:32)
  8. Strangeways (Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover) - 5:56 (7:35)
  9. Mitzi Dupree (Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover) - 5:03 (5:05)
  10. Dead or Alive (Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover) - 4:42 (5:01)

Reviews

Rolling Stone magazine writes in its review:

The House of Blue Light ... is certainly a significant improvement on the lukewarm comeback Perfect Strangers from 1984. The band has not been that good since their Smoke on the Water youth days , with the exception of a few duds on page two .

And further:

Fortunately, the crash 'n' burn obscures most of the album's lyrical embarrassments. ... And aside from the more purple poetry, The House of Blue Light is a surprisingly powerful return from the tar pits. There's no smoke on the water , but Deep Purple still makes a pretty good fire.

Chart placements

The album and individual singles reached the following chart positions:

album

year country Chart placement
1987 Germany Charts-surfer.de 1
1987 Sweden Swedishcharts.com 1
1987 Switzerland Hitparade.ch 3
1987 Austria Austriancharts.at 11
1987 United States The Billboard 200 34

Singles

year single country Charts placement
1987 Call of the Wild United States Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks 14th
1987 Bad attitude United States Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks 14th

Awards for music sales

Country / Region Award Sales
Awards for music sales
(country / region, Award, Sales)
Canada (MC) Canada (MC) Gold record icon.svg gold 50,000
Switzerland (IFPI) Switzerland (IFPI) Gold record icon.svg gold 25,000
United Kingdom (BPI) United Kingdom (BPI) Silver record icon.svg silver 60,000
All in all Silver record icon.svg1 × silver
Gold record icon.svg2 × gold
135,000

Main article: Deep Purple / Discography # Awards for music sales

swell

  1. Lyricsfreak.com. Retrieved July 6, 2009
  2. ^ 3 Sat, Deep Purple - Come Hell or Water, accessed on July 6, 2009
  3. Countdown To The New Album at www.deep-purple.net (accessed July 5, 2009)
  4. Biography at www.mtv.de ( Memento of the original from February 13, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on July 5, 2009) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mtv.de
  5. ^ Barry Graves, Bernward Halbscheffel, Siegfried Schmidt-Joos: Rock-Lexikon , p. 254, Rororo, 1998, ISBN 3-499-61588-6
  6. Albuminfox at www.thehighwaystar.com (English, accessed on July 5, 2009)
  7. Album Review at www.deep-purple.net (accessed June 29, 2009)
  8. ^ Review of the album by Rolling Stone
  9. Charts-surfer.de accessed on July 7, 2009
  10. ^ Swedishcharts.com. Retrieved July 7, 2009
  11. ^ Hitparade.ch accessed on July 6, 2009
  12. Austriancharts.at accessed on July 6, 2009
  13. ^ Billboard accessed on June 29, 2009 ( Memento from June 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ^ Billboard accessed on June 29, 2009 ( Memento from October 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  15. Gold / Platinum. Music Canada , accessed January 2, 2019 .
  16. ^ Gold & Platinum Awards 1987. In: Music & Media Magazine. American Radio History Archive, accessed January 2, 2019 (PDF file, p. 46).
  17. ^ BRIT Certified. British Phonographic Industry , accessed January 2, 2019 .

Web links