Deep Purple's Perfect Strangers vs. House of Blue Light

Dig 'em both. As Perfect Strangers is...perfect, it gets the edge.

 

Anger? Disgust?
What I think I did was I gave it a spin then in horror put it away. A few years later when I was cleaning out the cobwebs I pulled it out and gave it another spin. It was then that I saw nothing redeeming enough to even rip and keep...I just tossed it.

 

Unless it was my ex-wife’s cassette copy of Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell that she’d play every morning while getting ready for work. That went into the trash without her knowing it and I never heard that album again

 

The House Of Blue Light.....for me simply the best Gillan Purple album (I'm a Coverdale fan). Strong material, albeit not great production. Love it.
.

 

My vote goes to Perfect Strangers which was great reunion album

 

IDK, Hot Space went to never to return land after I heard that album.......cough.

 

Compared to In Rock, Fireball, Machine Head or WDWTWA...both of these albums are pretty bad IMO. HOBL just sounds like DP trying to be a Rainbow spin-off. Yeesh, the whole thing just drips of MTV cheese. It’s literally unlistenable to me.
Perfect Strangers fares slightly better, but the root of the problem is that both these albums do their best to sound like adventure/drama movie soundtracks. Also, no way does Gillan’s voice have the same power it had on those previous albums. I think that little Black Sabbath stunt he did trashed it out pretty good. I have no desire to spin these again.

Perfect Strangers 3/10
HOBL 0/10

 

Oops, that is a statement

Every Hard Rock group failed after successful 5-10 years.... AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Golden Earring, Nazareth, Uriah Heep... even Led Zeppelin

 

Perfect strangers easily for me , the title track is a classic , and there was a great sense of excitement for that release and the knebworth show. Sadly by house of blue light the momentum had gone again, and it’s a rather forgettable album

 

Perfect Strangers. Great album. A very strong comeback/reunion albums by a band with such such a strong past as well as a vast recorded history.
I was very impressed when it was released and I still am impressed with it every time I play it, there really isn't any duds on this album nor odd outta place experiments, for a band that hadn't played together in 15 years they really nailed it, it still sounds fresh today and not like they are retreading anything past, no easy feat.
The WG CD sounds great and what I play the most now. I have the U.S. vinyl, U.S. orig CD, Remastered CD for the Son of Alerik track which I have on the 12" single Perfect Strangers, I also have 2 copies of the cassette, I used to listen to a lot in my car and truck back then, even the pre recorded cassette sounded good.
I like the album and imo the recording has held up very well over time, a great mix and no dated effects.

 

I bought both when they came out. I loved Perfect Strangers. Never could get into House of Blue Light. So Perfect Strangers by a long shot.

 

Perfect Strangers sounds (in a good way) like it could have been the followup to Who Do We Think We Are, and it has several strong tracks in its lineup. It was the best thing Deep Purple did until Steve Morse joined the band.

As for House Of Blue Light, it definitely sounds like the group were aiming for more commercial mass appeal. To be fair, it starts out very strong with the killer track, Bad Attitude. But what follows is--for the most part--mediocre (Hard Lovin' Woman, Call Of The Wild) to awful (Mitzi Dupree). However, I do enjoy The Spanish Archer, Strangeways and Mad Dog. Ian Gillan even managed a healthy scream for the latter track.

Perfect Strangers 8/10
House Of Blue Light 6/10

 

Perfect Strangers is my choice... the other, ummm.

 

Perfect Strangers obviously. Knocking at Your Back Door is a rockin tune.

Sweet Lucy was a dancer but none of us would chance her because she was a samurai...

 

Perfect Strangers. Even if the rest was terrible, which it is not, it would win based on the strength of title track alone.

House of Blue Light would have to have been one of the very first records I bought on the day or week of release and I remember really trying hard to like it but was ultimately disappointed. I remember how excited I was for that live album too that followed it up but that basically stank as well. I gave them both away and haven't heard them for 25 years at least. I still spin Perfect Strangers occasionally.

 

Perfect Strangers by a long shot.

I saw them on the HOBL tour, they were great live as always, but I cant even remember them playing anything from that album. I sure they must have, but I don't recall. The songs on HOBL were just weak, paint-by-numbers hard rock to me. I really wanted to like that album, but just.....didn't.

 

I like Perfect Strangers better overall. It does sound a bit dated though. Still, what an exciting reunion it was then. The title track is still superb.

I like "Mad Dog" from HOBL.

 

Bad Attitude, Hard Loving Woman, The Unwritten Law, and Dead Or Alive were the 4 songs regularly played in 1987

 

Of course youre correct, I just checked the set list online and they actually played five that night from HOBL, but I honestly don't know or remember the songs, they made no impact on me. I haven't listened to HOBL in 25 years. Despite that, Deep Purple were always fantastic live and I even have great memories of the 1987 show. Child in Time was unreal.

 

Yo,

"The House of Blue Light" I prefer to "Perfect Strangers", if only because I saw the band having a go at big-time success again, with some radio friendly , & catchy tunes in there... There's nothing wrong with that IMO.

There's a very, very hard edge on the music that lives on "The Battle rages On", that didn't appear on the previous two albums either IMO.

I tend to think that what all these three albums lack is the formidable musical contributions from Jon Lord...He's there, but only as a background monument, which is a tragedy. It's Jon Lord & his contributions that really set the tone & musicality of the early 1970's records IMO. It's a shame he was pushed out, or decided to take a back seat.

Cheers,

Gregster

 

I think you’re probably onto something with Gillan trashing his voice with Born Again, but to be fair, a voice like his couldn’t hold up forever. His solo work helped destroy it as well.

Perfect Strangers definitely does not hold up to DP’s previous albums from their heyday, but it remains special to me as it was only tour I ever saw them on.

 

How do you figure that AC/DC "failed"? Sure, they never released another album on par with Highway to Hell, but they were consistently a major act for 40 years.
There are a ton of other hard rock bands that kept it going for more than 10 years: Scorpions, Judas Priest, Metallica, Pearl Jam, Blue Oyster Cult, Motorhead, etc.

 

Yes, that is true. Many Hard Rock groups were successful live acts. But AC/DC made never a good album like HTH or BIB. They maintained their great albums on stage. Deep Purple is in the same category. Their last really good album is Come Taste the Band.

 

I'd do anything for love (but I'll not listen to that!)

 

My ratings:
Strangers 8/10
Blue Light 6/10