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KNOCKING AT YOUR BACK DOOR: THE BEST OF DEEP PURPLE IN THE 80S

Deep Purple

Proto-Prog


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Deep Purple Knocking At Your Back Door: The Best Of Deep Purple In The 80s album cover
2.87 | 20 ratings | 3 reviews | 15% 5 stars

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Boxset/Compilation, released in 1991

Songs / Tracks Listing

1. Knocking At Your Back Door 07:02
2. Bad Attitude 05:07
3. Child In Time [live] 10:35
4. Nobody's Home 04:00
5. Black Night 06:07
6. Perfect Strangers 05:19
7. The Unwritten Law 04:55
8. Call Of The Wild 04:51
9. Hush [live] 03:31
10. Smoke On The Water [live] 07:43
11. Space Truckin' [live] 05:39

Total Time 01:04:49


Line-up / Musicians

- Ritchie Blackmore / guitars
- Ian Paice / drums
- Roger Glover / bass
- Ian Gillan / vocals
- Jon Lord / keyboards


Releases information

Tracks 1,4 and 6 are taken from the album Perfect Strangers
Tracks 2, 7 and 8 are taken from the album The House Of Blue Light
Tracks 3, 5, 9, 10 and 11 are taken from the album Nobody's Perfect
Some versions have Son of Aleric (10:03) as track 3, instead of Child In Time [live]

Polydor 511 438-2,France, Mercury 314 513 430-2 (US, 1992)

Thanks to easy livin & mogorva for the addition
and to snobb for the last updates
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DEEP PURPLE Knocking At Your Back Door: The Best Of Deep Purple In The 80s ratings distribution


2.87
(20 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of rock music(15%)
15%
Excellent addition to any rock music collection(30%)
30%
Good, but non-essential (40%)
40%
Collectors/fans only (15%)
15%
Poor. Only for completionists (0%)
0%

DEEP PURPLE Knocking At Your Back Door: The Best Of Deep Purple In The 80s reviews


Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings

Collaborators/Experts Reviews

Review by Easy Livin
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
3 stars For a short while, this was essential

This compilation sources its tracks from just three Deep Purple albums. All three feature the celebrated mark 2 line up of Gillan, Glover, Blackmore, Lord and Paice, but as the title suggests it is their 1980's albums which are featured.

The group's first two reunion albums, "Perfect strangers" and "The house of blue light" supply 3 tracks each. The title track from "Perfect strangers" and the title track of this compilation ("Knocking on your back door") from the same album are two of the band's finest songs in many a year. While "Nobody's home" may not quite match them, it too demonstrates what a strong album their comeback was. It would be churlish to bemoan the omission of say "Wasted sunsets" when there was such a wealth of material to choose from.

"House of blue light" was by comparison less impressive, but the three tracks included here are admittedly among the better ones on it. All three are very much in the traditional Deep Purple mould.

Four of the tracks are live versions of old songs, although there is no indication on the sleeve that they are live recordings other than the "80's" reference. All four are from the "Nobody's perfect" live album, which I personally rated highly, but which receives mixed reviews. "Black night", "Space truckin'" and inevitably "Smoke on the water" all come from the classic era of the band in the early 70's, and are clearly included here to boost sales! The fourth track, "Hush" is a cover of a Joe South song from the pre Gillan/Glover era, but the rendition here brings the song up to date nicely.

Of great interest to fans of the band when this compilation was released in Europe is the inclusion of "Son of Alerik". (The song was omitted from the US version of this compilation.) This 10 minute instrumental written by Ritchie was recorded during the "Perfect strangers" sessions, but omitted from the album. It has since been added as a bonus track on re-issues of the CD, but for a while it made this compilation very alluring to the Deep Purple faithful.

In all, a good if rather superficial summary of three of the band's albums from the mid 1980's.

Review by memowakeman
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
3 stars Not bad at all!

This afternoon i read EasyLivin's review of this album and it made me remember that i had this album some years ago and why not writing my own short review.

I have to confess that i have never been a Deep Purple fan, i know just a few albums and despite making cool music, great rock, they have never clicked on me, don't really know why. The fact is that some years ago i bought this compillation album first because it was too cheap, and second because i though it was a nice way to knowing some of the band's popular tunes. Now after reading that review, i have realized (pardon my previous ignorance) that this compillation features songs from only 3 Purple's albums, so it does not show their hits from all their eras or phases as a band, but just from a short period.

Well, i then listened to it several times, enjoyed it a few times and then i decided to get rid of it, not for being a bad compillation album, but because i was not excited with the music, i just kept some songs in my computer, and some weeks later i sold it, or exchange it, don't remember what exactly happened.

This album has 11 songs and more than a hour of music, 4 of the tracks are live tracks, and actually are from older studio albums, classic Deep Purple songs like Smoke on the Water or Child in Time, and the other 7 songs are from the 80s as the titled of this compillation states, my favourite songs are Perfect Strangers, Bad Attitude and Nobody's Home.

Sorry for not being that enthusiastic with this review, i just wanted to wrote after remembiring i had the album, not exactly for being a fan of the band, etc. But i think, that if you like Deep Purple, you should own this compillation, and if you don't really know the band but are interested, i do recommend you this album as well, it is a nice way to know some of the band's best and better known songs.

3 stars! Enjoy it!

Review by zravkapt
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
2 stars Even though this is subtitled "The Best Of Deep Purple In The 80s", I foolishly believed I would be getting the studio version of "Smoke On The Water" when I bought this. Live and learn. Here you get the best songs from the albums Perfect Strangers and The House Of Blue Light. In addition you get songs from the live album Nobody's Perfect. All songs here are performed by the re-united Mk II version of the band.

"Hush" from Nobody's Perfect is a re-recording. Only Blackmore, Paice and Lord played on the original Purple version. This 48-track recording from 1988 sounds better than the 4-track recording from 1968. However, the original has a better performance. As would be expected, the live versions here don't compare to the same songs on Made In Japan. Gillan still had a great voice at the time. Maybe he still does; I've heard Purple live in the '90s and he still had a good voice then.

This is a great way to get the best Purple songs from the 1980s without having to get the actual albums they came from. Still, there's nothing remotely proggy here except maybe "Child In Time". But even the version here is not as good as the In Rock version or live versions from the '70s. Nothing essential for a progger. 2 stars.

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