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

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.