Perfect Strangers

Perfect Strangers was the first Deep Purple studio album in nine years and the first with the Mark II line-up in eleven. Blackmore and Glover came from Rainbow, Gillan from Black Sabbath, Lord from Whitesnake and Paice from Gary Moore's backing band. It was recorded at Horizons in Stowe, Vermont, with Le Mobile Studio in 1984, mixed at Tennessee Tonstudio in Hamburg, engineered by Nick Blagona and mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound in New York. Roger Glover and the band produced it, and Glover also played synthesizer.

Only Nobody's Home and Not Responsible were credited to all five members. The rest went to Blackmore, Gillan and Glover. Gillan and Glover tried to return to the shared credits of 1970 to 1973 but Blackmore held firm, and the matter was only settled after he left in 1993. The CD and cassette carried Not Responsible as an extra track, and a 1999 reissue added the instrumental Son of Alerik.

It was released on 29 October 1984 by Polydor, and by Mercury in the United States, and reached number five in Britain and number 17 on the Billboard 200. It was only the second Deep Purple studio album, after Machine Head, to be certified platinum in the United States, and the 1985 American tour out-grossed every artist that year except Bruce Springsteen. Reviews were mixed. Rolling Stone's Deborah Frost called the material beyond the two singles hastily knocked-off jams but praised Blackmore's roaring Stratocaster, and Martin Popoff praised its songcraft. Glover called it a great moment in time that does not quite hang together as an album.