From the Deep-Purple.com website and Simon Robinson:
Perfect Strangers is getting the Universal Remastered treatment this summer. Roger Glover first talked about a special edition for the 25th Anniversary of the album back in 2009. Incredibly they were unable to find the multi-track tapes, which effectively means that a remix wasn’t possible. This is a shame as the very 80s production sound hasn’t worn well in places (some of us dared to say so at the time but such comments didn’t go down very well! I’m still off Ritchie’s Christmas card list…). Let’s hope it the tapes turn up somewhere and haven’t gone for good.
So what to include instead? CD1 will be the straight remaster (including the original non-album track Not Responsible – which was later fitted onto the picture disc vinyl edition). Given that this album was remastered for CD as recently as 1999 it’s not certain how much this will improve the audio.
CD2 is an odds and ends disc with some tracks from Knebworth (which is already released as a stand-alone package), the b-side Son Of Alerik and more from the instrumental jam out-takes (which is where Alerik originated). Fans with long memories will recall the announcement of a Japanese compilation called The Best of Deep Purple in the 80s, issued in 1991. To give this added value the Japanese asked for any extra tracks and Glover went back through the reference tapes and in particular a couple of the long instrumental jams which had taken place during the preparation for the album. He pulled two sections out which he felt stood up, and these were selected as the two bonus tracks. Promo tapes went out – with the new material on – but the tracks disappeared before the CD was pressed (Cosmic Jazz and RUIR I think were the titles – the latter turning out to be a typing error for RIJIR – from the initials of the band’s christian names). It was thought that not everyone in the band wanted this material out, hence it being pulled.
Again if you remember Knebworth coming out, this wasn’t complete as the BBC had already erased a couple of tracks from their recording. We managed to replace some from off-air recordings but Under The Gun had gone for good. So they’ve added a version of it here from the show in Paris (along with the audio off the slightly longer promo video studio version).
CD3 will be the old Interview Disc Polydor issued as a promo for the album back in late 1984. This was from exclusive interviews done by the late Phil Easton. There was an American interview disc as well but I don’t think this will be included.
It all highlights the difficulties of working with the band’s back-catalogue of this period; there are concert recordings of the era which would serve fans better as bonus material than recycling Knebworth but after so long I guess we’re reaching the stage where most fans have given up and got most of what they want on bootleg. Quite why just one track from Paris for example but not others?
The packaging follows along the same lines as the Rainbow remasters (part is shown here). I always really disliked the original album cover, a logo so contrived and ugly that it quickly vanished after the tour.
It’s fun to look back and recall the excitement of 1984/5 of course. Collectors searching all over for the interview discs (which were pressed in quite low numbers): The kudos of being able to get one of the advance album sales brochures carried by Polydor reps (which showed an early version of the cover): Nabbing the special stand-up box which stores displayed the 7″ version of the single in: And of course the eager discussions over the merits of the album itself amongst fans. And all of this more than a quarter of a century ago – just to make everyone feel their age!
This title can be pre-ordered at the DTBOnline Store
I will get this as soon as released. Played the heck out of this when first released. I wish they included the videos that went along for this album whcih included scenes playing soccer and all.
