Posted on by Nathan Beaudry

Episode #101 – Deep Purple – Perfect Strangers (Part 2)

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Visit my website https://vinyl-records.nl for complete album information and thousands of album cover photos

Album Tracks:

Side Two:

  1. Perfect Strangers (Gillan, Blackmore, Glover)
    • Released as a single with the B-side of “Son of Alerik” which would later be released as a bonus track in later releases.
    • Glover said this was one of the best tracks he’d ever been involved with either in writing, producing, or playing and it was his favorite track on the album.
  2. A Gypsy’s Kiss (Gillan, Blackmore, Glover)
  3. Wasted Sunsets (Gillan, Blackmore, Glover)
  4. Hungry Daze (Gillan, Blackmore, Glover)

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      • Copy of Elements with review on the cover “Mostly Mellow Jazz”
      • Hey guys, I thought this was funny so I had to share it. I picked up a copy of Elements on vinyl the other day. It’s a white label promo copy. The funny thing is that someone wrote “mostly mellow jazz” on the cover” it looks like someone also scratched “rock &” in between the words mellow and jazz. So it could have read as “ mostly mellow rock & jazz” if the “rock &” part had been in ink too. The picture doesn’t really show that though. I don’t think I would use those adjectives to describe this album, but okay… 
      • Now since this was a promo copy, it makes me wonder if the person who originally owned this received a lot of promo records and marked all of them this way by writing directly on the album cover? It seems like a barbaric way to catalog something and one that would only be employed if you received so many albums that you no longer cared about them. 
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      • Picture attached. 
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Reception and Review

  • After a few weeks of recording Ritchie and Roger flew to Hamburg to mix the album.
  • Ian Paice said in Tommy Vance interview that he hoped they could inject a little more thought and class into Rock and Roll.  Described what was going on with pop in the mid 80s as a “fashion show.”
  • Ian Paice: “It’s kind of annoying because all the exciting bands seem to be coming from America at the moment and that’s not the way that God intended it.”
  • The CD and cassette original release contained the extra track “Not Responsible.”
  • The CD re-release contained the bonus track “Son of Alerik” a solo Blackmore composition which was released as a B-side to the Perfect Strangers single.
  • The album was a huge success.  It reached #5 in the UK charts and #17 on the Billboard 200 in the US.
  • It was the second album to be certified platinum in the US after Machine Head.
  • The following tour was such a success that they had to add many additional dates as shows sold out very quickly.
  • Their 1985 tour was only out-grossed by Bruce Springsteen that year.
  • Roger Glover has said of this album, “A great moment in time, but, as an album it doesn’t quite hang together.”
  • Paice: “To me, it’s a natural progression from [the] earlier records, but with a ten-year growth period in between.  It was a revelation to capture the spirit of the Mark II Purple once again . . . very refreshing.”
  • Lord: “a perfect album. IT said everything about the band that needed to be said.  We weren’t trying to be a super new 1980s band, and at the same time we weren’t just a nostalgia band.”
  • Ritchie: “We put [Deep Purple] back together to annoy the press, basically.  Give them something to btch about. That really is our No. 1 priority — to upset the critics.”

Reviews:

  • https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/perfect-strangers-194042/
  • Perfect Strangers
  • 2 Stars by Deborah Frost
    • The title track comes blasting out of nowhere, like an I’m-alive-and-well message from an old friend you’d given up for dead. With its steamy vocal and genuine, if uncharacteristic, touches of wit throbbing above Deep Purple’s heavy signature sound, “Perfect Strangers” sets the tone for this venerable band’s reunion album. Lead singer Ian Gillan — who’s never been in finer, and deeper, throat — sinuously glides into lyrics that suggest these veterans have something to say about where they’ve been in the last few years (“Can you remember, remember my name … I am the echo of your past”) and have lots more to offer in the future. For a moment, you almost wonder why Purple ever faded away in the first place. Until, that is, you hear the rest of the album.
    • Excepting the title cut and the rambunctious but less effective “Knocking at Your Back Door,” the material consists of hastily knocked-off jams that allow guitar demigod Ritchie Blackmore to whip out his finger exercises in public. The band spent about six to eight weeks recording this comeback. (The current lineup is actually neither the original nor the final Deep Purple but the most successful — of “Smoke on the Water” fame.) It doesn’t sound as if they spent much more time thinking about it, either.
    • Blackmore’s Strat has such a great roar that you’re willing to just let it reverberate in your eardrums for a bit. And it’s nice to hear Jon Lord’s unsynthesized organ squalls, Ian Paice’s meaty pounding, Gillan’s howls and whispers and Roger Glover’s solid bass lines once again. Eventually, though, it’s “enough of the sound check already — where are the songs?” Instead of Glover, an outside producer might have forced the band to tighten up its licks and arrangements. Then again, did Deep Purple ever have more than one or two really good, concise numbers on an album? Maybe they’re just making the kind of record they always did, the only kind they know how to make.
    • So why are they doing this? To cash in on the current heavy-metal craze, in which dozens of young upstarts are making fortunes playing Purple riffs? Following a recent meet-the-press shebang promoting the album and impending world tour, the band members (minus the temperamental Blackmore, who, true to his “enigmage,” didn’t show) insisted they don’t need the dough. Perhaps the answer lies in “Wasted Sunsets,” a portrait of an aging rock star who’s got “gold and silver for the blues” but nothing to do except drink the nights away. It’s nice that Perfect Strangers got the Purples out of their respective mansions; too bad they didn’t venture farther from home.
  • LA Times Interview
  • https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-01-27-ca-9632-story.html
    • http://www.deep-purple.net/DPASmags/dtb30.htm#perfect
    • The album hit the record stores here on October 29th, though most London stores held out for the official release date of November 2nd. The cover appalls me; looks like something a thirteen year old would carve into a school desk in a moment of boredom. The music; you know damn well that what went down at those rehearsals and in the studio must have been electric, yet the energy doesn’t always communicate itself to the listener, which is a shame. The temptation in reviewing it is to get carried away by the fact that they are back together, and rave about the goodies while playing down the more mediocre stuff. That would be wrong.
    • ‘Knocking At Your Back Door’ effortlessly crosses the gap between commercial and hard rock in a way Rainbow tried so long to achieve… lovely chugging strings at the intro, Paicey lays into it, the Hammond swirling about, and a very typical Blackmore riff. Polished performances all round and disgustingly catchy. ‘Nobody’s Home’ is a hard rocking steal from ‘Lay Down Stay Down’ amongst others. ‘Mean Streak’ doesn’t consist of much at all – pounding bass, hi-hat and what sounds like good organ work buried in a really muddy sound. I find it hard to say a lot about the title track. It is everything Purple ever were to me, if I had to justify the reunion to anyone this cut would suffice. Ian’s vocals charged with emotion, all set over a gorgeous piece of work from the band. It belongs up there with the best of everything they’ve done before. ‘Wasted Sunsets’ is nicely predictable. It could have made a blinder, I’d have liked a quiet start, taking it up gradually to increase the power. ‘Hungry Daze’ is a bit of a let down, the best bit being the middle part – Third Stone From The Sun revisited!
    • The Burn album is probably the closest point of reference in terms of how I feel about the album overall. That too was recorded quickly, and showed a marked change of style. This time we’ve been prepared somewhat with Rainbow, and the shadow of that band is fairly strong. More variety in the manner of Gillan’s output over the past few years wouldn’t go amiss.
  • Kerrang review by Geoff Barton
  • Melody Maker review by Barry McIlheney
  • Sounds review of the “Perfect Strangers” single
  • UK Review
  • http://www.deep-purple.net/reunion/deep-purple-reunion-2.html
    • “Leaden Grandads” Record Mirror; “Some things never change, and this is one of them.” Melody Maker; “Bland and sluggish” Bury Times; “Dated plodding heavy metal” Music Week; “Old gits” NME. Great reviews for what most fans still regard as one of the best tracks of the reunion to date.
  • After the album’s release the band would embark upon 

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