Never say never
Here’s a blast from the past: Ian Paice and Roger Glover promoting the soon to be released House of Blue Light on British TV.
Thanks to STERF EN BEDERF for posting the video above and to Yvonne for bringing it to your attention.
![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/glover1.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/paice.jpg)
Here’s a blast from the past: Ian Paice and Roger Glover promoting the soon to be released House of Blue Light on British TV.
Thanks to STERF EN BEDERF for posting the video above and to Yvonne for bringing it to your attention.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Totally underrated album, better than Perfect Strangers (which was DP treading it safe and finding their feet again, understandable after the long time apart).
It was very varied, from the proggy (Bad Attitude, Unwritten Law, Strangeways) to the hilarious (Call of the Wild, Mitzi Dupree), groovy stuff (Black & White, Spanish Archer), typical DP romps (Hard Lovin Woman, Mad Dog, Dead Or Live).
It’s criminal how the original 1987 CD version (which was more than four minutes longer than the vinyl due to several track extensions) is un-remastered to this day. Roger to the rescue! Remix the darn thing.
May 18th, 2021 at 00:10We, well some of us have said it before & yes I agree 100% with Uwe in regards to this album. We do need a remix etc, (trying not to sound too demanding of course). However it would be nice but if we have to live with the original, it is all good. Cheers.
May 18th, 2021 at 06:57Uwe Hornung @1
May 18th, 2021 at 09:15I agree with your analysis of the tracks on the album.
The problem with ‘The house of blue light’ that DP was aiming to crack the American Market by doing music to compete with the exploration of MTV hard Rock music videos. So they produced a good but soulless spinless album. Not a single song from that album had a life on a live stage performance hence why it never did and will never grow and reach new hieghts.
Peace
@1
Fully agree with Uwe. A great and very underrated album. I think one of the issues with THOBL was that it was released when trends were changing towards either hair metal sound (which DC went for) or thrash (which Priest ultimately went for), and Deep Purple went neither way. The other issue was the chemistry between the band members and their own dispositions (e.g. most of them were heavy drinkers at that moment, and if you drink heavily in your 40s, it shows). The albums, with all its musical finesse, lacks the energy that PS had.
That said, it is an excellent album with good playing, nice melodies and slightly proggish attitude with fine textures but not overly complex. This is what they would later bring to perfection with Bob Ezrin albums. In fact, THOBL sounds like a proto-Whoosh…
May 18th, 2021 at 09:56#1 Underrated album – yes agree with that
I think the idea that better than PS would be a minority one though – lacks a real killer song like title track on PS and KAYBD
May 18th, 2021 at 11:20This is what I think: every substandard Purple album is still a great rock album.
May 18th, 2021 at 15:41Why DP have never played pieces from this fantastic but very underrated album?
May 18th, 2021 at 16:18It has been a pity.
@ 1 Yes!
May 18th, 2021 at 18:18@7 AndreA
They played indeed tracks from that album, captured on Nobody’s Perfect (the 1999 remaster):
– Dead Or Alive
– Hard Lovin’ Woman
– Bad Attitude
https://www.discogs.com/de/Deep-Purple-Nobodys-Perfect/release/2911846
May 18th, 2021 at 20:28@4: Good point, Georgivs, it’s a bit of a precursor to what Mk VIII do today.
Whenever DP stretched their wings and were more than just hard rock, Ritchie didn’t care for it. He disliked anything that reeked of experiment like Fireball, Who Do We Think We Are, Stormbringer, The House of Blue Light and The Battle Rages on. He likes the more conventional albums: In Rock, Machine Head, Burn, Perfect Strangers and Slaves & Masters. He was happiest when DP were just doing hard rock with good hooks.
And it is true that Perfect Strangers was a more commercial offering because it had two standout tracks – Knocking On Your Back Door and Perfect Strangers (both of them even with real choruses!) -, but edgy or forward-taking the album was not. The House of Blue Light wasn’t as immediately accessible, but is more rewarding at closer listen.
May 19th, 2021 at 09:06“Thank You” Martin @8
May 19th, 2021 at 10:50😂😂
It belongs to the THOBL tour.
After that they would not have done any song
House Of Blue Light is an underrated album in my opinion. Strange Ways is one of the best Deep Purple song’s ever written. Three million out of work but that’s on the second page………classic!
May 19th, 2021 at 12:32And Call of the Wild at the beginning of the THOBL tour (there was a Hungary bootleg with it), plus Unwritten Law a bit longer.
May 19th, 2021 at 13:18I like the HOBL and find it an album that flows nicely . I think Ritchie and Ian G raised their game on this one . Ian G rarely did the new songs justice on the tour though, he sometimes seemed a little off the pace and breathless.
May 19th, 2021 at 14:14I reckon the long instrumental section in “Dead Or Alive” is one of the high points in all of Purple’s music, presumably a collaboration between Jon and Ritchie. Epic!
May 19th, 2021 at 23:47I personally think the problem with this album was the mix and I’m surprised no one highlighted it here.
May 20th, 2021 at 04:16There’s plainly not enough vocals and guitar in the mix and too much keyboards and drums. At least half of the songs on it (mostly the side 1 of the LP) were imo very good but the whole album was totally ruined by the mix / production. So, the remastering only would not be enough, the whole remix would be needed.
Mad dog and Call of the Wild were done live at one point, there are boots (shhttt) in existence.
May 20th, 2021 at 21:55ad comment no 6 Marcelo: oh yeah, oh yeah, holy truth. I am very proud longterm fan of the band, which we can/must consider in its own context. This (LP) is a bit weaker than previous one… but only with this category territorium. I.E. high standard heavy rock album!
May 21st, 2021 at 05:45Thanx for this simple and fresh comment, Marcelo! Old glorious truth… DP must be judged only by their high level of music, not compared to anyone/anything else.
Reckon they should have offered Chris Tsangarides to produce the album. He later did a great job on Gillan’s “Toolbox”
May 23rd, 2021 at 10:35@ 19…as well with Thin Lizzy, Thunder and Lightning album.
May 24th, 2021 at 12:27Bad Attitude and Mitzi Dupree are great tracks. I think the living DP should re-record MD as it sounded unfinished and Bad Attitude deserves another live outing!
May 30th, 2021 at 09:46Am I the only person who thinks Ritchie’s admiration for Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy led to him to slow down their song Jailbreak and make it the backing track to Bad Attitude, off the Blue Light album. 😀
June 19th, 2021 at 03:09